Canada not mentioned in U.S. threat assessment’s summary of fentanyl crisis

[SpankyMcFarland]

If all the fentanyl used in the US last year was the amount smuggled in from Canada, nobody would be talking about it. It wouldn’t be a significant problem. 

[CdnFox]

15 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

If all the fentanyl used in the US last year was the amount smuggled in from Canada, nobody would be talking about it. It wouldn’t be a significant problem. 

really. Exactly how much fentanyl crossed the border last year?

If anybody died of it someone would be talking about it 

[SpankyMcFarland]

7 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

really. Exactly how much fentanyl crossed the border last year?

If anybody died of it someone would be talking about it 

I don’t think it would be a headline issue discussed by governments in trade talks. Look at recreational drugs like N-bomb. They bring tragedy to families across the world, including Canada, but the numbers are too small to merit wider discussion.

 

 

[CdnFox]

50 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

I don’t think it would be a headline issue discussed by governments in trade talks.

 

Maybe not, but if they're dealing with fentanyl in general why wouldn't you try to address ALL sources, especially if some are easy to tighten up?

having said that i've already said previously that i think they made the 'crisis' more of an issue to justify treating it as an 'emergency' to avoid needing congressional support than anything else.  But it's one of those things where "If we're here already, there is an issue we might as well clean up a bit". 

[SpankyMcFarland]

Bloody hell, the amount of fentanyl seized by the US last year that is definitely attributable to Canada may be less than one pound! Did you get that, Republicans? One frigging pound. We’ll use your weirdly anachronistic system of weights so as not to confuse you. Great work by the Globe here.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-fentanyl-data-undercuts-white-houses-portrayal-of-canadas-role-in/

 

 

 

 

[herbie]

You're trying to convince MAGAtts that facts are facts.
Makes their brains hurt!!! You big meany!

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Bloody hell, the amount of fentanyl seized by the US last year that is definitely attributable to Canada may be less than one pound!

So how much got across that they didn't seize?

The amount they seized is utterly meaningless. The amount they seized didn't kill anyone. But as far as you know there is 100,000 tons that made it across that they didn't seize. 

It's a hell of a lot easier to cross on our borders than it is in Mexico so....  Did you have anything else that's of no relevance at all he'd like to share

[SpankyMcFarland]

It’s not meaningless at all. It’s a measure of the amount getting through and the amount is being grossly overstated. You think the Americans wouldn’t notice if Mexican levels of fentanyl were coming across their northern border? 

Edited April 2, 2025 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

5 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

It’s not meaningless at all. It’s a measure of the amount getting through and the amount is being grossly overstated.

No it isnt - you would have to know with reasonable certainty how much was getting over.  How do you know that smugglers haven't figured out a route that isn't being caught?  How do you know if truckers or the like are managing to create a method or the like to get it through undetected. 

How much is caught is utterly meaningless.  How much gets through matters, We know a hell of a lot was manufactured in canada at the superlabs that we can't account for.  it went somewhere. 

Lets try to at least use basic common sense and logic. You can't tell how much is getting through by how much is caught, especially if you have no data from the past to compare. 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

34 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

No it isnt - you would have to know with reasonable certainty how much was getting over.  How do you know that smugglers haven't figured out a route that isn't being caught?  How do you know if truckers or the like are managing to create a method or the like to get it through undetected. 

How much is caught is utterly meaningless.  How much gets through matters, We know a hell of a lot was manufactured in canada at the superlabs that we can't account for.  it went somewhere. 

Lets try to at least use basic common sense and logic. You can't tell how much is getting through by how much is caught, especially if you have no data from the past to compare. 

 

So you think Mexican levels of drugs could be coming over and the Americans would be too stupid to know that? That’s your position? 

Edited April 3, 2025 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

5 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

So you think Mexican levels of drugs could be coming over and the Americans would be too stupid to know that? That’s your position? 

You tell me what my position is, you seem to be making it up on the fly. 

My actual position is that how much we siezed does not tell us how much we didn't.

My other actual position is that there's a great deal of evidence that suggests a very substantial amount has crossed the border for some time.  I doubt it's anywhere near the levels of mexico but lets say it's a quarter of mexico. Or even a 10th. That would still be a SHIT TONNE of fentynal.  Not "one pound" as you suggest. 

SO while we might not be anywhere near mexico's league, we may still be a fairly substantial source. Thev've found several 'mega labs' capable of producing far more than domestic consumption would be, where exactly did that extra production go? Why keep building labs that big across the country if you're not going to export?  The capacity is huge. just one of those labs was producing enough fentynal to "kill every person in canada", and they've found several and how many have we NOT found, and that's in addition to smaller labs. 

It's going somewhere. 

As i've said i don't think it's a crisis level problem as trump has suggested but its clearly not nothing and it's pretty obvious it's more than "one pound" as you suggest. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

Here’s a dog that didn’t bark: the spread of fentanyl in Europe. Despite illegal labs and the drug itself being a Belgian product originally, its recreational (!) use has mercifully never exploded to North American proportions. 

 

Quote

While deaths attributed to fentanyl in England and Wales climbed from one in 1999 to 60 in 2017, the figure has fallen steadily ever since. In 2023, 41 deaths were linked to the drug, and last year British health officials said there were no deaths attributed to illicit fentanyl.

 

Quote

Last year in Canada, more than 7,000 people died from opioid overdoses, with 74 per cent involving fentanyl.

 

Quote

The mortality rate due to all drug overdoses in 2023 in the EU is around 25-per-million people aged 15-64, according to the bloc’s annual European Drug Report. By contrast, in the U.S., the age-adjusted mortality rate just for synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl, was nearly nine times higher at about 222-per-million.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-fentanyl-opioids-drugs-europe-north-america/

https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(14)00905-5/pdf

Causes for this curious discrepancy can be debated, eg more medical use outside hospitals here, more heroin there and the proximity of Mexican labs, but the difference remains startling. 
 

 

Edited August 8, 2025 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

4 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Here’s a dog that didn’t bark: the spread of fentanyl in Europe. Despite illegal labs and the drug itself being a Belgian product originally, its recreational (!) use has mercifully never exploded to North American proportions. 

 

 

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-fentanyl-opioids-drugs-europe-north-america/

https://www.jpain.org/article/S1526-5900(14)00905-5/pdf

Causes for this curious discrepancy can be debated, eg more medical use outside hospitals here, more heroin there and the proximity of Mexican labs, but the difference remains startling. 
 

 

It's weird but I'd be more inclined to just rack it up to popularity. It might be that it's just more popular over here in less popular over there. I mean that's an absolutely massive discrepancy when you take population size into account, it would be hard to pin it on any one real source I think

[SpankyMcFarland]

2 hours ago, CdnFox said:

It's weird but I'd be more inclined to just rack it up to popularity. It might be that it's just more popular over here in less popular over there. I mean that's an absolutely massive discrepancy when you take population size into account, it would be hard to pin it on any one real source I think

There is a family of powerful synthetic opioids in the UK, the nitazines, but the annual fatality rate from them in England, less than 200, is tiny compared to our fentanyl numbers in Canada:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/deaths-linked-to-potent-synthetic-opioids/deaths-linked-to-potent-synthetic-opioids

I think our problem is cultural. People in Britain are better at living in misery; by contrast, we believe there is a drug for all that ails us. 

 

 

 

[CdnFox]

52 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

There is a family of powerful synthetic opioids in the UK, the nitazines, but the annual fatality rate from them in England, less than 200, is tiny compared to our fentanyl numbers in Canada:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/deaths-linked-to-potent-synthetic-opioids/deaths-linked-to-potent-synthetic-opioids

I think our problem is cultural. People in Britain are better at living in misery; by contrast, we believe there is a drug for all that ails us. 

 

 

 

It's tiny compared to the fentanyl deaths in Greater Vancouver, never mind all of Canada. It would seem that they're doing something right