Warrant reveals details behind B.C. safe-supply pill seizure

The investigation began with the alleged kidnapping last November of a bank customer in Campbell River, B.C., who claimed he was being forced to transfer his car and thousands of dollars to drug traffickers.

It ended with a raid on a fortress-like property within the boundaries of a tiny First Nation 10 kilometres away and, according to police, the seizure of thousands of pills originally provided to users of the province's safe supply program.

Four people now face charges of drug trafficking in association with the bust — with one count specifically accusing them of dealing hydromorphone, the substance handed out as safe supply.

The story of the investigation and its consequences — including banishment for three of the accused from the We Wai Kai First Nation — is told in documents CBC News applied to unseal in provincial court.

It's a case the We Wai Kai chief says raises questions about the flow of government-funded drugs into the illicit market; a story that illuminates the bigger toxic drug crisis and its mix of greed, death and desperation.

"It's never 'safe' when it's in the hands of drug dealers," says Chief Ronnie Chickite, leader of the We Wai Kai's roughly 1,100 members.

"It just shows you that it's not a safe supply. I think the program had intentions, but it's obviously failed. ... I know the government officials see it different, but this is how we're seeing it as a nation of our size. And seeing the amount that was there, I mean it's unfortunate, but it's not the system we need."

The search warrant and the criminal charges that flowed from it were all issued in the downtown Campbell River courthouse, which sits about 50 metres away from the pharmacy where a handful of people line up every weekday morning to get their safe supply pills.

According to documents obtained by CBC in a similar case, patients can be issued up to 28 hydromorphone tablets at a time. On the street, the tiny pills are worth as much as $20 each and can be swapped for cash or harder drugs.

CBC spent two days in Campbell River speaking to police, First Nations members and safe supply users. 

William Cook is here every day. He says he'd never trade the safe supply that protects him from death; he thinks it's wrong to sell personal medication.

But he understands both the temptation and the pressure.

"Sometimes it's chaotic. There's people outside and they're bugging you and they're asking you and there are people trying — like more than multiples — trying to get it. It's a good money-maker," he says.

"For some people it's probably an income and they'd starve [without it]. I think it's wrong, of course, because it's against the law, [but] some people need it to eat. That is a fact."