The Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU) is criticizing the Surrey RCMP for a recent news release in which it announced a significant drug seizure in 2023, describing it as a pre-election "spectacle."
Tyson Singh Kelsall, a PhD candidate in SFU's Faculty of Health Sciences who works with the SUDU research committee, said the police are talking about the seizure as if it's a positive event that should be celebrated.
Surrey RCMP issued a press release about the Oct. 4 seizure of 23 kilograms of ecstasy and other drugs. The drugs were seized in August 2023, but the news release only came out recently.
Cpl. Sarbjit Sangha told the Surrey Now-Leader on Oct. 4 that there is a reason the news release came out over a year later. "Sometimes, we have to hold off on the information because there are other ongoing investigations that would be jeopardized if we had put something out at that time when we did the search warrant," she said.
Kelsall said: "I think it was one of the more ridiculous spectacles they put on."
"They called it a year-long investigation across multiple task forces, and they ended up with 23 kilograms of Molly and people's prescription medication, including Ritalin and Xanax."
Kelsall said while he did not see a direct impact on the ground from this seizure, he often does.
"There are well-established decades of research showing that there's an increase in overdoses following drug seizures," Kelsall said.
One such study, published in July 2023 in the American Journal of Public Health, examined the potential connection between law enforcement drug seizures and overdoses in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 2020 to 2021.
The study found within three weeks of the seizures, there was an increase in overdoses in the surrounding area.
It concluded by stating that more research needs to be done. "Supply-side enforcement interventions and drug policies should be further explored to determine whether they exacerbate an ongoing overdose epidemic and negatively affect the nation’s life expectancy," reads the study.
Kelsall added these drug seizures are only destabilizing the market. "All we do is make the drug market more volatile, both in terms of toxicity and in terms of violence," he said.
"The government is not providing a regulated alternative. They're not regulating drugs, and they're not offering people extra support when their sources are destabilized."
"I think it's very clear the direction or strategy that B.C. and Canada has for drugs has always been prohibitionist," he added. "We know that it has put us into this toxic drug crisis, and the fact that the police are celebrating it, it just shows that they're OK with people who use drugs dying in the crisis."
Surrey is the city with the second-highest number of toxic drug deaths in the province, just behind Vancouver.
