Mounties showed off the spoils of a major fentanyl drug lab bust as they announced charges against the man accused of running equipment capable of producing 18,000 pills an hour.
It’s part of a push to reduce the fentanyl-contaminated illicit drugs in the Vancouver market – responsible for dozens of overdoses across the country – though drug experts are skeptical the raid will put a dent in the industry.
“I’ve been to a number of labs. This is as sophisticated as they come,” said Cpl Derek Westwick of the RCMP.
Officers in containment suits showed off the fentanyl they isolated from a house in the Riverside area of Burnaby in January, as well as equipment worthy of the show “Breaking Bad,” where a chemistry teacher enters a world of organized crime by cooking methamphetamines.
Mounties were tipped off by the CBSA, which intercepted one of the pill-pressing machines as it passed through the Vancouver Airport in November. They found $35,000 in cash, brass knuckles, a starter pistol with ammunition, and body armour.
Officers say a Vancouver man in his 20s, Riley Goodwin, was making pills that looked like the prescription painkiller OxyContin, but instead was splicing fentanyl into the product.
OxyContin – also known as “hillbilly heroin” – was widely abused, and in recent years was made harder to obtain through a variety of measures, according to Dr. Dan Werb of the International Centre for Drug Policy.
Instead, he said illicit drug manufacturers are turning to the cheaper fentanyl to put into their products, even though it is much more potent. That means errors in production can create pills with much more opioids than intended, and increase the likelihood of an overdose.
Werb says regulating one drug alone simply increases demand for another, and called for a comprehensive regulation that would cover all opioids, from fentanyl to OxyContin to heroin.
“We need to think about regulatory approaches that take into account prescription drugs and illicit drugs,” Werb said.
Hugh Lampkin of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users said the illicit drug production is too profitable and someone else will have filled the void left by the January bust already.
“The second they put the cuffs on, someone else will take their place,” Lampkin said.
RCMP Staff Sgt Doug Pound said the force encourages other safety measures as well, including that drug users minimize their risks, and pointed to knowyoursource.ca, which encourages drug users to avoid drugs whose sources they don’t trust, not to use drugs alone, and to learn about naloxone, a drug that can prevent overdoses.
He said Mounties showed off the machines in part so that citizens will recognize them by sight and by sound, and are asking that if you see or hear equipment like that, to call the police.
