Canada Invests $78.7M to Strengthen Drug Enforcement
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/02/22
Health Canada is responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health. It ensures that high-quality health services are accessible, and works to reduce health risks. The Public Health Agency of Canada is part of the federal health portfolio. Our activities focus on protecting against threats to public health, preventing and reducing diseases and injury, and promoting health, well-being and equity. The Canadian government is investing $78.7 million to expand laboratory and regulatory capabilities as part of Canada’s Border Plan to combat synthetic drugs. This funding will establish the Canadian Drug Analysis Centre (CDAC) for specialized forensic analysis and launch the Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit (PCRMU) to monitor emerging drug threats. Proposed amendments to the Precursor Control Regulations include mandatory suspicious transaction reporting and increased oversight of precursor chemicals. The initiative aims to enhance law enforcement intelligence, improve precursor tracking, and address the overdose crisis by strengthening public health, surveillance, and enforcement measures at Canada’s borders and within communities.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How will the investment of $78.7 million expand laboratory and regulatory capabilities?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: Health Canada plays a critical role in supporting Canadian law and border enforcement in their activities to counter the global synthetic drug threat.
The $78.7 million announced as part of Canada’s Border Plan will help law and border enforcement better detect and address fentanyl and its precursors by:
- Creating the Canadian Drug Analysis Centre (CDAC), which will complement existing laboratory capacity by allowing for more specialized analysis of synthetic drug samples. The analysis will look at markers to help determine how and where these substances were manufactured.
- Launching a new Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit to increase oversight of precursor chemicals and to monitor emerging illegal drug trends.
Jacobsen: What amendments are proposed for the Precursor Control Regulations (PCR) and Schedule IX of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA)? How does the consultation fit into Canada’s plan to combat illegal synthetics?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: The proposed amendments would:
-Make suspicious transaction reporting to Health Canada mandatory for licensed and registered companies.
-Require licensed and registered companies to conduct additional criminal record and background checks on key personnel.
-Impose condition-of-sale restrictions for ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, limiting sales to pharmacies only.
-Expand registration requirement on the importation of component parts of designated devices like pill presses and encapsulators.
-Introduce regulatory flexibilities to enable Health Canada to respond more quickly to public health or safety risks.
Health Canada will use the comments received to inform the development of the proposed regulatory amendments.
Jacobsen: How will Health Canada enhance monitoring and surveillance of precursor chemicals?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: The Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit (PCRMU) will enhance Health Canada’s surveillance activities for timely identification of emerging substances of concern via wastewater analysis. Wastewater analysis involves testing samples collected from untreated wastewater (sewage) to screen for the presence of drugs and drug metabolites, such as fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and their precursor chemicals.
Jacobsen: How will the Precursor Chemical Risk Management Unit work?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: The PCRMU will provide better insight into precursor chemicals, distribution channels and enhance monitoring and surveillance to enable timely law enforcement action. Specifically, the PCRMU would provide:
- Greater oversight of precursor chemicals and identification of risks in existing distribution channels.
- More timely and agile response to potential threats of new and emerging precursor chemicals.
- Enhanced ability to identify substances of concern through new monitoring and surveillance capacity (e.g., wastewater); and
- Enhanced data and intelligence sharing capabilities between federal partners, as well as with US and international partners, to inform scheduling and strengthen controls.
Jacobsen: How will the creation of the Canadian Drug Profiling Centre strengthen forensic analysis?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: The new Canadian Drug Analysis Centre (CDAC) will operate through Health Canada’s Drug Analysis Service (DAS) laboratories. The new Canadian Drug Analysis Centre (CDAC) will allow for more specialized analysis of synthetic drug samples. The analysis will look at markers to help determine how and where these substances were manufactured. The analysis of these very low-level impurities and other components specific to the chemical manufacturing process will help to identify trends and patterns to inform on the origin, distribution, and manufacture patterns of the drugs. Profiling analyses will also involve purity determination of all active drugs and cutting agents to better understand how distributors and drug dealers are changing or modifying the drugs. This can help law enforcement and public health partners to more strategically target actions to address the synthetic drug threat.
Jacobsen: Why is mandating licensed and registered companies to report suspicious transactions to Health Canada important?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: Currently, companies are required to keep records of suspicious transactions, but reporting to Health Canada is voluntary. This is a gap that has been identified through Health Canada’s discussions with law enforcement in helping detect the diversion of a precursor to an illicit market or use.
Jacobsen: What are the public health and safety concerns motivating the government’s initiatives here?
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada: The overdose crisis is one of the most serious public health crises our country has ever faced. It is driven by an illegal toxic drug supply.
To address this crisis, we need a comprehensive and collaborative approach. All orders of government and communities need to work together on solutions, from prevention and harm reduction, to treatment, recovery, and enforcement.
As part of Canada’s Border Plan, the Government of Canada is taking concrete action to keep communities safe on both sides of the border. This includes investing $1.3 billion to make out border stronger, with more personnel, advanced AI technology, new drones and helicopters, and stronger coordination between partners. The regulatory amendments are just one piece of the plan.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time.
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