B.C.’s fentanyl market estimated to be up to $300 million

published on December 8, 2020 by Graeme Wood in Business in Vancouver

British Columbia’s illicit fentanyl market is conservatively estimated at upwards of $300 million, according to a unique study by local criminologists and drug experts.

Dr. Martin Bouchard, a Simon Fraser University criminologist, and Dr. Michael-John Milloy, a research scientist at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, presented their findings to the Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in British Columbia Monday.

Bouchard told Commissioner Austin Cullen that the estimate of $200 million to $300 million being spent on the streets for fentanyl or fentanyl-included drugs or stimulants is conservative.

Their research report describes the figures as “plausible, yet imperfect calculations of total expenditures on fentanyl, ‘down’ (i.e., heroin contaminated with fentanyl), and stimulants (i.e., crack/cocaine, methamphetamine, etc.) laced with fentanyl.”…