Canadians can now mail their narcotics to Vancouver to find out whether or not they will kill them

One drug advocate is asking Canadians to mail him their street drugs to find out how fatal they are — even though it’s illegal.

So far, at least 25 people, three of whom are from Toronto, have sent in samples of cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy), CBD and fentanyl.

Dana Larsen, director of the Vancouver Dispensary Society, is the man leading the Canada-wide effort and says it’s more important than “following the law.”

“I want to help save lives, I want people to be informed and I wish they could buy clean, pre-tested drugs,” he told the National Post in a telephone interview.

“The whole war on drug users is a genocide of the poor.”

Mark Haden, an adjunct professor of the faculty of medicine at the University of British Columbia, says this testing also puts pressure on drug dealers.

“This could create a level of accountability, the idea that drug sellers would start to realize their customers are holding them accountable and saying ‘Look, that’s not good, here’s the proof’,” Haden said in a telephone phone interview.

“If there are enough people saying, ‘You need to clean up your act,’ there might be pressure of drug dealers to change.”

Every town and city in the country needs something like this

More than 10,300 Canadians have died due to apparent opioid overdoses since 2016 — with 93 per cent of those deaths in 2018 being accidental.

Larsen asks for a 10 mg sample of the drug (about the size of a grain of salt), what city the sender lives in, the sender’s e-mail and a physical description of the drug. He also uses multiple mailing addresses.

Then, Larsen’s trained staff puts the contraband into a $40,000 machine that uses lasers to figure out what chemicals are inside, known as a Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy machine.

He also says he destroys the samples, mainly by flushing them down the toilet, but says the amount is being flushed is less than what most users excrete in their urine.

Larsen then publishes the results minutes later.

Although his website notes limitations and cannot guarantee 100 per cent accuracy, he hopes this can help researchers and users learn about what substances are floating around Canadian streets.

“Every town and city in the country needs something like this,” says Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga.

“We’re in the midst of a crisis and we need to foster a safe supply and ensure places to check that… They reduce the chances of overdose and are beneficial in a number of ways,” he said in a phone interview.

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Health Canada also acknowledged the country’s opioid crisis in a statement to the National Post, calling it “the most serious public health crisis in Canada’s recent history.”

“Health Canada is particularly concerned about the ongoing contamination of the illegal drug supply with highly toxic substances such as fentanyl and carfentanil, as well as the emergence of new variants of drugs whose effects are unknown,” read the statement.

Donald MacPherson, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, says allowing for more spaces for safe drug use will prevent more deaths.

“The notion of consumer safety does not apply to people who use illegal substances and that is tragic,” he said in a phone interview.

“We know people will use them, it’s bewildering that we allow it to remain one of the most dangerous things in the world to do, especially over the last four or five years as fentanyl works its way into the system.”

To account for that drug in particular, Larsen uses a test-strip system where the drug dissolves in the water and is tested with litmus paper that changes colour at the presence of fentanyl and most copycat versions.

Although more than 6 out of 10 Canadians who die of an opioid overdose in Canada is from British Columbia or Ontario, B.C. has been hit the hardest, with more deaths than any other province.

It is also one of the few provinces to have sites that allow for drug-testing, but are unable to ask people to mail them substances as does Larsen, which he says is one of the benefits of operating illegally.

We should provide a network of testing services

A spokesperson for the Vancouver police said the department was not aware of the program before being approached by the National Post, but the force has a “long standing history of supporting health initiatives that will help those addicted to drugs.”

“We do support harm reduction strategies and initiatives as well as accessible and immediate treatment for substance abuse on-demand for adults and youth,” read the statement.

Prior to questions from the National Post, Health Canada was not aware of Larsen’s project and did not authorize it, but said the 2019 federal budget will include measures to combat the opioid crisis.

Canada Post wrote it has “no affiliation with it and does not support the mailing of illegal substances” because it could pose a risk to postage workers.

“The substances in question are considered non-mailable matter and prohibited by law. If these substances are detected in the mail stream, Canada Post will remove them,” it said.

“We are aware of the website you mention and are reaching out to the organization to ensure it is fully aware of the laws governing what can and cannot be mailed.”

Larsen says although he has no problem leading the “act of civil disobedience,” he shouldn’t be the one doing it and shouldn’t have to pay for a $40,000 scanner with his own money when it’s a “drop in the bucket” for the government.

MacPherson says the policymakers should be taking notes from Larsen.

“If we’re going to keep this fairly barbaric system of allowing organized crime to run the drug system and not change and move toward regulating substances, then we should provide a network of testing service across the systems,” he said.

Larsen hopes to get dozens of samples a day and his next move is to set up a fixed location where people can come in to test their drugs and keep them afterwards.