'They don't care that you're a kid': Teen shares how drug dealers market substances as 'safe supply'

PORT COQUITLAM, B.C. -

Cassidy knows of at least three teenage girls who have lost their lives to a drug overdose in just over the past year.

Cassidy isn’t her real name. CTV News has agreed to protect her identity.

The 16-year-old said she turned to drugs to help with her anxiety.

“I've always been anxious but I think the lockdown made it worse,” she said. “For me, (the drugs) help with anxiety, because I had a lot of anxiety being around people, but when I take it, like, I just did fine and I would talk to whoever.”

She said it started two years ago, when people she knew started taking a drug she had never heard of before.

“All of a sudden people were doing them and like my friends would just be like, ‘Oh, I'm on a dilly,’” she said.

HOW SAFE SUPPLY IS BEING MARKETED

Dilly is the street name for Dilaudid, the brand name of hydromorphone.

Hydromorphone is an opioid used to treat pain and commonly prescribed under B.C.’s safe supply program.

Cassidy described how the drug dealers would persuade her into thinking that hydromorphone was safe to use.

“They tell you that there's nothing bad in them, that they’re clean drugs that won’t kill you or harm you in any way, that they’re 100 per cent dilly,” she explained. “They say that they have, like, a guy that goes in the store and gets it for them and then brings it out.”

Whenever Cassidy got a craving, she would message drug dealers on social media apps, such as Instagram and Snapchat, or take transit to the Downtown Eastside, she said.

She explained a pill costs $5 but they're cheaper in the DTES.

“I’ve gone down there (the DTES) and like I've had like homeless people call out to me and ask if I want dillys,” she said.

“It’s actually kind of crazy that it is that easy and they don’t care that you’re a kid and you could die.”

Cassidy hasn’t tested all the batches of so-called dillys, but when she’s overdosed and the drugs were tested, they contained heroine and MDMA, she said.

Last month, Dr. Bonnie Henry acknowledged it is difficult to tell what is prescription hydromorphone.

“We also know that drug dealers will use that as a selling point, and that there are fake Dilaulids out there, and that nobody is safe from those either. And it's very difficult to tell the difference between fake manufactured or prescription hydromorphone,” she said at the time.

In a statement, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions warned any drugs purchased in the black market could be fake or poisonous and should be tested.

“There is an active market of fake hydromorphone tablets circulating in the Downtown Eastside. Many of these contain varying amounts of fentanyl,” the statement reads.

Henry also acknowledged drug dealers may be reselling safe supply on the black market.

'CAN'T LET SAFETY SLIDE': STURKO

Eleanore Sturko, a former RCMP officer and the BC United critic for mental health, addictions and recovery said more needs to be done to ensure diverted safe supply is not getting into the hands of youths.

“Hydromorphone is not a drug that is regulated for recreational use, and yet it's easy and cheap and available for kids to get -- and I think that's a huge concern,” she told CTV News.

She said calling drugs, such as hydromorphone, safe supply is a misnomer and the provincial government should rename the program.

“One of the easiest safeguards is to change the name to be more in line with the reality of what the substances are. They are publicly-supplied addictive drugs; they're medically prescribed pharmaceutical alternatives, changing our language, changing our attitude, to make sure that people understand that there's a risk, particularly kids who might think. ‘Hey, you know what, it's safe,” Sturko said.

She’s also been in contact with families who have lost teenaged children to a drug overdose.

Some of them have sent her photos of hydromorphone and gabapentin pills, which she tracked down to clinics prescribing safe supply.

She said there should be more studies into how these substances, that are resold on the black market, are impacting people.

“We're on a path of trying to reduce stigma, but we can't let safety slide as well. We'd have to balance those two things. And I think more should be done, certainly to investigate the pathways by which diversion is taking place,” she said.

“I think that when it comes to youths and novel drug users, particularly when government is the drug dealer, government is the one coming up with the plan, that there’s a responsibility there to make sure we’re doing our very best to prevent any harm from coming to the public.”

She said it is important to raise concerns even though it’s viewed as controversial, to ensure there are no unintended consequences.

“Asking questions and making sure there’s safety in place for things like safe supply is not anti-harm reduction. Harm reduction is very many things, like access to safe needles, access to supervised consumption,” she said.

The ministry said the vast majority of prescribed hydromorphone is used for pain management and 16 per cent is used as part of safer supply.

It said the review of the program is ongoing and in the preliminary findings, overdose deaths dropped by 76 per cent.

“Without prescribed safer supply, more people would be dying,” the statement reads.

ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY

Cassidy no longer has the numbers and contacts of drug dealers on her phone.

She goes to a medical office for monthly injections of Sublocade, a medication which is used to treat an opioid addiction.

Having lost a handful of friends to the opioid crisis already, she said she hopes to save lives by sharing her story.