The National Post has learned that police leaders in London, Ont. have known for months that staggering amounts of “safer supply” opioids are being diverted to the black market. Yet the London Police Service (LPS) failed to share this information with the public despite a raucous national debate about whether, or how much, such diversion is occurring.

Safer supply programs, which are sanctioned by the federal government, distribute free addictive drugs — predominantly eight-mg tablets of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin — to mitigate the use of riskier street substances. While advocates claim that this practice “saves lives,” a series of stories in the National Post has shown that safer supply clients often divert (sell or trade) their free hydromorphone to acquire stronger substances, which then floods communities with the drug and fuels new addictions.