A scathing new study by a Canadian addictions physician concludes that ideologically driven “social justice” governments have worsened the country’s fentanyl crisis by aggressively funding and promoting so-called “safer supply” programs—despite a lack of evidence they save lives. Instead, as mounting proof showed that thousands of government-distributed opioid tablets—as potent as heroin—were being diverted into the black market by organized crime, Health Canada, public health officials, and sympathetic media outlets continued to defend the controversial programs and attack critics.
Even as violent incidents emerged—including a shooting outside a Toronto safer supply clinic—the study notes that some advocates called for medical professionals to be removed from program oversight entirely.
In a paper published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Dr. Lori Regenstreif, a veteran addictions physician, argues that Canada’s “safe supply” programs—widely expanded after 2019—have not only failed to reduce overdose deaths, but have coincided with a steep rise in fatalities. The number of opioid-related deaths in Canada surged from 3,023 in 2016 to more than 7,300 by 2021, despite increased distribution of government-supplied hydromorphone tablets. Regenstreif warns that the policy, intended as harm reduction, has morphed into a dangerous social justice experiment, sidelining evidence-based treatments like methadone and buprenorphine in favour of unproven, unsupervised opioid dispensing.
What Canada has chosen to do to address opioid overdose is unique, Regenstreif states of her findings, released today.
“No other country would envision a policy in which people with opioid addiction are simply given bottles of opioid pills with the assumption that this will solve their risk of overdose death.”
Instead of curbing fatalities, safe supply programs have unleashed a wave of diversion—with powerful 8mg hydromorphone tablets, known on the street as “Dillies,” leaking into illicit markets and being trafficked across the country. She cites a growing body of evidence, also covered in reports from The Bureau, that these pills are not only widely sold and traded by program participants, but also used as currency by organized crime groups.
Cited in the study, like-minded addiction experts Dr. Sharon Koivu and Dr. Jenny Melamed report that the street price of Dilaudid 8mg tablets collapsed from $15–$20 in 2020 to as low as $0.50 by late 2021. “Things changed within weeks of the hydromorphone hitting the streets,” Melamed said. This sudden flood of pharmaceutical-grade opioids reshaped local drug economies—allowing criminal networks to exploit the government-funded supply chain and expand access to hard opioids far beyond clinical settings.
Regenstreif also highlights systemic flaws in the program’s implementation. Staff at supervised injection sites often appeared well-meaning, but lacked clinical experience and a clear understanding of untreated addiction behaviour.
“They did not grasp the constant pressure felt by users to acquire more drugs, money, or other currency to maintain use.”
One notable case cited in the report occurred in 2023, when a peer support worker at the Parkdale Community Health Centre in Toronto was implicated in a shooting incident.
“A peer support worker, perhaps with naïve but good intentions, ended up on the wrong side of the law in attempting to protect a safe consumption site client involved in a shooting,” Regenstreif writes.
Yet despite such outcomes, advocates continued to push for a “non-medicalized” model of opioid distribution, in which trained addiction specialists were sidelined.
Regenstreif traces how media coverage of the safer supply programs has shifted in tone amid growing investigative scrutiny and backlash from program advocates and public health officials.
Health Canada is described as having dismissed or re-framed concerns over diversion. One federally funded guidance document, titled Re-Framing Diversion for Health Care Providers, argued that diversion should not be stigmatized. “The current medical and criminal-legal framing of diversion perpetuates stigmatizing and patronizing views of people who use drugs,” the document reads.
The Globe and Mail’s Andrea Woo wrote in 2024 citing British Columbia’s Coroners Service and noting no definitive link between prescribed safe supply and overdose deaths. However, Regenstreif points out that coroners cannot determine how a victim first encountered opioids—only which drug was in their system at death. “A coroner cannot determine if the opioid came from a diverted prescription,” she writes.
National Post contributor Adam Zivo—who has reported on diversion for The Bureau—was among the first to investigate pill diversion in 2023, interviewing clinicians who used pseudonyms due to fear of backlash. The study cites his reporting in describing a pattern: as police across the country seized tens of thousands of prescription opioid pills, and more physicians documented evidence of diversion, the research field remained notably shallow. Meanwhile, advocates of safe supply programs politicized the issue, accusing critics of inciting a “moral panic” and aligning with entrenched institutional interests.
Regenstreif contends that it is frontline addiction physicians—those treating users of fentanyl and working within the safer supply framework—who are best placed to assess its consequences. She recounts one patient under 18 describing a visit to a Burlington, Ontario clinic, where they saw a doctor only on video and were handed a bottle of Dilaudid. Others reported buying diverted Dilaudid bottles openly on the streets of Peterborough, Thunder Bay, and Windsor in Ontario, or Victoria and Nanaimo in British Columbia.
Not all supporters of the program are acting in bad faith, Regenstreif notes, but many fail to see the bigger picture. Addiction specialists, public health officials, and researchers have each addressed isolated elements of the crisis based on their particular lens—yet none have managed to bring these perspectives together into an effective, unified response.
Corroborating Canadian reports, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration identifies hydromorphone—marketed as Dilaudid—as a drug of interest to traffickers, producing effects similar to heroin and fentanyl. The DEA lists common street names such as “D,” “Dillies,” “Dust,” “Footballs,” “Juice,” and “Smack,” and warns that diversion occurs through forged prescriptions, doctor-shopping, and pharmacy theft—risks compounded by unmonitored safe supply systems.
In her conclusion, Regenstreif warns that comparing opioids to alcohol, as some safe supply advocates do, is a false analogy. Alcohol’s harms accumulate gradually; opioids, by contrast, are acutely toxic and deadly. Canada must chart a better path forward, she argues—one that prioritizes evidence-based care, not ideological narratives. That path includes a return to opioid agonist therapy and wraparound services; genuine adherence to medical science; balancing individual and community well-being; and reuniting the four pillars of Canada’s drug strategy: prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement.
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Following an alarming rise in fentanyl deaths in recent years, President Donald Trump is taking another step in cracking down on the deadly drug seeping its way onto American streets by designating it a weapon of mass destruction.
The president signed the executive order Monday during an event in the Oval Office, saying the illicit drug “is closer to a chemical weapon than a narcotic.”
The designation comes on the heels of the administration’s increasing military presence in the Caribbean, targeting narco-terrorists and “successful” meetings with Chinese leaders, who have vowed to crack down on the production of precursors of the drug.
Critics of Trump’s move want to address the fentanyl crisis through a different way. For example, a 2024 bill from attorneys general asking former President Joe Biden to do the same thing expressed concerns about political optics and the language akin to military. Overreach and blurred lines in domestic actions, such as rounding up users.
The order would provide the secretaries of the Department of War and Department of Homeland Security to “update all directives regarding the armed forces’ response to chemical incidents in the homeland to include the threat of illicit fentanyl.”
Trump said the fentanyl drug trade “threatens” national security by fueling “lawlessness” in the Western Hemisphere. This is the area of North America and South America, and the islands near each.
“The production and sale of fentanyl by foreign terrorist organizations and cartels fund these entities’ operations – which include assassinations, terrorist acts, and insurgencies around the world – and allow these entities to erode our domestic security and the well-being of our nation,” the order says in part.
Trump said two cartels are predominantly responsible. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known also as CJNG, are based in Mexico.
The Drug Enforcement Agency said last December that in 2023, more than 107,000 people died from drug overdoses, with nearly 70% attributed to opioids, like fentanyl.
In late February, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via its National Vital Statistics System predicted a 24% decline in drug overdose deaths for the 12 months ending in September. The finding was based on 87,000 drug overdose deaths from October 2023 to September 2024, down from 114,000 the year prior.
Trump declared opioid overdose a public health emergency in 2017 during his first term.
Insane footage shows a bystander attacking and disarming one of the terrorists, who appears to have been armed with a long rifle, during today’s shooting attack on an event celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. pic.twitter.com/mJceco22bJ
The chaos that struck Australia on Sunday night produced one moment of astonishing courage: a Sydney shopkeeper, armed with nothing but instinct and grit, charged a gunman at Bondi Beach and wrestled the rifle out of his hands as terrified families ran for cover. Authorities say the act likely prevented even more deaths in what officials have already called an antisemitic terror attack that left 12 people dead and dozens wounded during a Hanukkah celebration along the water.
The hero has been identified as 43-year-old fruit shop owner Ahmed Al Ahmed, a father of two who happened to be nearby when gunfire erupted at the beachfront event “Hanukkah by the Sea,” which had drawn more than 200 people. Footage captured the moment he marched toward the shooter, grabbed hold of the rifle, and overpowered him in a brief, violent struggle. As the gunman hit the pavement, Al Ahmed momentarily pointed the weapon back at him but didn’t fire, instead placing it against a tree before another attacker opened up from a bridge above. He was hit in the hand and shoulder and is now recovering after emergency surgery.
A relative told Australia’s Channel Seven that Al Ahmed had never handled a gun in his life. “He’s a hero — he’s 100 percent a hero,” the family member said. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns echoed the praise, calling the scene “unbelievable,” adding, “A man walked up to someone who had just fired on the community and single-handedly disarmed him. Many people are alive tonight because of his bravery.”
Police say two shooters stepped out of a vehicle along Campbell Parade around 6:40 p.m. and began firing toward the beach. One gunman was killed, the other is in custody in critical condition. Detectives are also investigating whether a third attacker was involved, and bomb units swept the area after reports that an explosive device may have been planted beneath a pedestrian bridge. The toll is staggering: 12 dead, including one shooter, and at least 29 wounded — among them children and two police officers.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned what he called “a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah,” saying, “What should have been a night of joy and peace has been shattered by this horrifying evil attack.” Emergency crews flooded the beach as hundreds of panicked people sprinted away from the gunfire. Video shows one attacker firing down toward the sand from the bridge behind Bondi Park before being shot himself in a final standoff captured by drone footage. Both gunmen appeared to be carrying ammunition belts, with witnesses estimating up to 50 rounds were fired.
Australian police have cordoned off properties linked to the suspects and continue to canvass Bondi for additional threats. What remains clear is that Sunday’s attack was met with extraordinary acts of self-sacrifice, none more dramatic than a shopkeeper from Sutherland who walked into gunfire to stop further slaughter.
