adam zivo: trump has reason to fear canada's fentanyl traffickers
canada is not yet the colombia of fentanyl, but action is needed now before things get out of hand
4 minute read
fentanyl that was seized is displayed at the rcmp headquarters in surrey, b.c., on oct. 31, 2024. canada has become a hot spot for fentanyl "superlabs."
darryl dyck / the canadian press
u.s. president-elect donald trump is right to criticize canada for mishandling the fentanyl crisis. for too long, canadian policy-makers have taken a laissez-faire approach to drugs and crime, and have, in the process, turned the country into an emerging exporter of deadly narcotics. up until a few years ago, canadian suppliers played a negligible role in the global illicit opioid market — largely because agricultural and economic barriers made production unattractive.
natural opioids, such as heroin, are made by refining opium extracted from certain strains of the poppy plant. while these strains thrive in warmer climates, they can still grow in canada, albeit less efficiently, although their cultivation is strictly illegal. criminalization has proven highly effective here because, unlike cannabis, growing and processing opium poppies requires a considerable amount of space and labour.
to illustrate: in 2007, peter facchini, one of canada’s leading researchers of natural opiates, told the cbc that australian farmers who legally grew opium poppies were paid around $7,500-$15,000 per acre (approximately $11,000-$22,000 in 2024 dollars). in contrast, a 2021 article by aaron smith, an agricultural professor at the university of california, berkeley, estimated that cannabis growers in california saw per-acre revenues of around us$700,000 (or around us$810,000 in 2024 dollars).
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growing cannabis is generally a magnitude more profitable and land-efficient than cultivating poppies, which matters greatly for traffickers who want to stay inconspicuous (the fact that poppies are brightly coloured doesn’t help).
canadian traffickers could hypothetically process their poppies into opium, increasing profits, but drug enforcement experts have said this is so labour intensive that it dissuades most would-be entrepreneurs. the rewards are also underwhelming: according to the book “opium: a history,” one acre of poppies yields only between three to six kilograms of opium, which, based on a 2022 rcmp street value estimate, amounts to just $60,000-$120,000 in revenue.
rather than deal with poppies, canadian traffickers prefer to import opium or heroin from abroad, where production is cheaper. in 2017, an estimated 90 per cent of heroin in canada originated in afghanistan. while a small minority of canadian gangs import and refine opium into heroin (which is less conspicuous than making opium from poppies), opportunities for re-export are limited: why buy canadian product when inexpensive afghan or mexican alternatives exist?
then everything changed with the popularization of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that, in addition to being 50 times stronger than heroin, can be easily (and very profitably) made with just chemicals, not poppies.
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in the mid-2010s, chinese-made fentanyl began flooding into canada and the united states, spurring a precipitous rise in overdoses and deaths. facing international pressure, beijing criminalized the production and sale of fentanyl in 2019, but continued providing tax incentives that encouraged the export of fentanyl precursors (the chemical ingredients used to make the drug).
as beijing’s ban left a hole in the market, and the acquisition of precursors was easy (80 per cent of them were legal in canada in 2022), mexican and canadian gangs quickly ramped up domestic production — between 2020 and 2021, canadian border seizures of fentanyl precursors increased tenfold. the covid-19 pandemic only intensified this trend by interrupting global trade.
most mexican fentanyl is intended for international resale — between 2019 and 2023, for example, annual seizures of the drug at the u.s./mexico border ballooned by over 1,000 per cent (from 1,154 kg to 12,247 kg). meanwhile, canadian fentanyl was initially absorbed by the domestic market. but by 2021 there was such an oversupply that local prices dropped 30 per cent, pushing gangs to sell abroad.
this oversupply was made possible by bad policy-making. in canada, illegal substances can easily be smuggled through the port of vancouver, which has not had a dedicated police force since 1997 (the port of seattle, with comparable shipping volumes, has over 100 officers and 50 support staff). as the rcmp cannot fill this enforcement gap, fewer than one per cent of shipping containers entering the port are searched.
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canada’s incredibly lax justice system, along with staffing shortages within the rcmp, have created a safe haven for organized crime. drug decriminalization in b.c. hasn’t helped, either: dealers and mules are essentially untouchable so long as they carry only small amounts of product and refrain from consuming in public. as a result, fentanyl “superlabs” have proliferated throughout the country, especially the west coast.
worse yet, canadian policy-makers have shown stunning disregard for the international impacts of their harm-reduction strategies. to illustrate: b.c.’s top doctor, bonnie henry, advocated for full drug legalization (“non-medical safer supply”) last summer, despite receiving a report, authored by u.s. drug expert jonathan caulkins, arguing that this would inevitably increase inter-jurisdictional trafficking. at the time, there was also emerging evidence suggesting that canada’s “safer supply” opioids were already being sold internationally.
in 2022, australian officials made their largest-ever seizure of illicit fentanyl: 11 kilograms of the drug had been shipped from canada. last month, the rcmp confirmed that canadian-made fentanyl is now an international problem and that canada has become an “exporting country.” that being said, this fentanyl remains a minor issue for the united states: seizures at the canadian border currently amount to less than one per cent of what is confiscated at the mexican border.
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canada is not yet the colombia of fentanyl, but, considering how rapidly drug markets evolve, it is entirely understandable that the united states, and other allies, are pressuring ottawa to fix this problem now, before it truly gets out of hand.
national post
adam zivo is executive director of the centre for responsible drug policy.
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