At a drug-testing site in Victoria, B.C., a machine that vaguely resembles a printer for chemical analysis buzzes away as technicians prepare to open the door to local drug users.
Most of the samples have been delivered to substance drug testA lab led by a University of Victoria researcher has been found to contain fentanyl, the synthetic opioid responsible for record levels of fatal overdoses in the province.
Concerns about the spread of fentanyl are ingrained in the way Canada and the United States talk about the opioid crisis. But in Mexico, the government has repeatedly denied that fentanyl abuse is spreading to its borders, claiming the problem is limited to its northern neighbor.
Weak testing during public health settings or drug death investigations means the extent of fentanyl’s impact in Mexico is largely an unanswered question.
“We don’t know because we’re not looking for it,” said Xóchitl Cárdenas, a forensic services chemist at the attorney general’s office in the northern Mexican border state of Sonora, where experts call a fentanyl crisis Very serious.
Ms. Cardenas is one of about a dozen Mexican forensic scientists, medical researchers and government workers who traveled to Vancouver and Victoria this week to learn how Canadian agencies deal with the supply of toxic drugs. She watched as Pablo Gonzalez, the graduate student in charge of the lab, listed the features of drug analysis software the university was developing that could give drug test results in 30 minutes.
This week I traveled with the group, and members visited a number of places where drug addicts can receive services, including booths where they can inject drugs under the supervision of medical staff, group sessions that offer grief counseling, and a facility that distributes treatment medications to drug addicts. pharmacy. Patients with opioid use disorder.
Mexican Tourists’ trip to Canada is sponsored by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico. In February, the bureau organized a similar tour to a “body farm” in Colorado, where Mexican medical examiners observed how fentanyl poisoning was detected in decomposing bodies.
My colleague Natalie Kitroeff, The New York Times’ Mexico City bureau chief, reported on the visit, which State Department officials hope will further their diplomatic goals, namely Reflecting on Mexico’s fentanyl crisis.
Alex Thune, deputy director of the Embassy Bureau, said Canada is an important partner in addressing the opioid crisis in the region.
“The progress Canada has made in this fight is impressive,” Mr. Thune told me, adding that his team hopes to round out the study tour by inviting Canadian and U.S. experts to visit northern Mexico.
The visit comes as political tensions erupt in Canada over British Columbia’s experimental approach to reducing opioid deaths by decriminalizing personal possession of small amounts of opioids.
(read: Canada decriminalizes opioids, other drugs in British Columbia)
Public health and policy experts we heard from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside say de facto decriminalization is already in place well before it officially begins in January 2023. The region is considered ground zero for the opioid crisis. They told us police often use the discretion they have to make arrests but still seize drugs, often causing drug users to race to unsafe options to satisfy their addiction. For arrestees, withdrawal symptoms in prison can have dangerous consequences.
NDP Premier and Leader David Eby has been facing increasing pressure to address public drug use ahead of October’s provincial election and announced last week that he wanted to Effectively stopping the experiment by about two-quarters. year run. Doing so would require authorization from the federal health department that approved the experiment.
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poliyev this week seized on the issue of drug legalization to attack Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He had a heated exchange with Trudeau during a question-and-answer session on Tuesday, calling him a “madman” and was ultimately temporarily expelled from the House of Commons for using unparliamentary language.
Drug overdoses from toxic substances are the leading cause of death for British Columbia’s largest demographic group aged 10 to 59 years. Such deaths account for more people than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural illnesses combined, killing more than 14,000 people in the province since 2016, according to the coroner’s office.
While politicians are backpedaling on the issue, as the Mexican visitor noted, the main difference in the two countries’ drug situations is that the Canadian government can broadly provide funding to address the dangers of opioids.
“We have no support from the government,” said Lourdes Angulo, director of the nonprofit Verter, which provides services to drug users in Mexicali, the capital of the northern border state of Baja California.
“We sometimes fear for our safety because the government is always looking for ways to stop our organization from doing what we do,” she said.
For experts like Ms. Cardenas, a chemist from Sonora state, the experience of walking through homeless encampments on the streets of Vancouver and Victoria gave new meaning to the results she was seeking. , where outreach workers make the rounds with naloxone kits to reverse overdoses. In the laboratory.
“It gave me a different perspective on drugs on the street,” she said.
Trans Canada
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Surrey, B.C. police announced three men arrested Participated in the investigation into the shooting of Sikh nationalist and temple director Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
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In a guest article for The Times, author Stephen Marche argues that public perceptions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership are changing in the face of Canada’s growing polarization.
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For the first time in a decade, three Premier League teams – Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City – are in the Premier League as the campaign enters its final weeks. Shawna Richer is an editor covering U.S. sports. Football fans visit a Toronto bar.
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Canadian culture writer Scaachi Koul reflects on how Watch episodes of Indian Idol Working with her family helped her mother get some respite during her cancer diagnosis.
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“Self-Portrait” is a documentary made using surveillance footage collected by Canadian filmmaker Joële Walinga. Five international films now in theaterswrites Devika Girish.
Vjosa Isai is a reporter and researcher for The New York Times in Toronto.
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