A recent and historic drug bust at the Boissevain, Man. border crossing is just the tip of iceberg when it comes to illicit drugs on Winnipeg’s streets, experts and advocates say.
On Wednesday, the Canada Border Services Agency and Manitoba RCMP released details on a major methamphetamine seizure that happened at the Boissevain border crossing on January 14. Officers seized 406.2 kilograms of meth valued at over $50 million dollars. The shipment was heading for Winnipeg, officers say.
The driver of the truck carrying the illicit drugs, 29-year-old Komalpreet Sidhu of Winnipeg, was arrested and charged with importing methamphetamine and possession for the purpose of trafficking.
The CBSA says this amount of methamphetamine is the equivalent of four million illicit doses of the drug.
“It’s an astronomical amount of methamphetamine,” said Ian Rabb, the manager director of Kelburn Recovery Centre and founder of 210 Recovery Centre. Rabb says it’s unfortunately an issue that already has a firm grasp on Winnipeg.
“It’s devastating our city as we speak about it today,” Rabb told Global News, adding that a bust, even of this magnitude, unfortunately won’t change much about what’s circulating on the city’s streets. “There’s always another dealer, there’s always another manufacturer, there’s always another organized group of criminals that are willing to make sure that drugs end up on the streets, whether it be pharmaceutical drugs on the street or illicit drugs on the street.”
Rabb says he’s there’s more of it and people using the drug are getting younger and younger. In some cases, as young as 14 years old, he says. Rabb also says people are now using it in a more harmful way.
“When you start doing meth, you start snorting it, and then you start smoking it, and then it takes a period of time until you start injecting it,” said Rabb, who recovered from a methamphetamine addiction himself. “What I’m finding now is the majority of people go right to injecting meth, no matter what age they are.”
He says community members, advocates, and levels of government need to work together on finding solutions to this issues. He says that will come through addressing the mental health crisis at the core of it all.
Arlene Last-Kolb is with Moms Stop the Harm, an organization that brings together families who have been impacted by substance-use related harms and deaths. Last-Kolb’s son died of a drug overdose nearly a decade ago.
She’s pleased to hear of the recent bust, but acknowledges that it’s twofold.
“It was massive. And as a mother, it was great. It’s always great news to get drugs off our streets,” Last-Kolb said.”But we know that that’s not really going to make a big difference. There will always be trucks behind them doing this, and it’s not going to change the toxic drug supply that we have that is killing people every day in our province. In fact, it could make things worse.”
Last-Kolb says she would like to see law enforcement continue to work on busting organized crime related to the drug trade, and she would like to see all levels of government working together to provide a safe supply.
“Those drugs would have been cut with other stuff,” she said. “So I believe that every drug bust is a great thing, but we need a safe supply, we need to eliminate the need for all of this stuff.”