Doug Ford says he’s opposed to harm reduction—so why is Ontario handing out millions of free crack pipes?

Given that the OHRDP has been operating for many years, it seems implausible that Ford, or at least his ministers, would be unaware of it. The Ontario Liberals also can’t be scapegoated here, since Ford has been in power for the majority of the program’s crack pipe operations, and the entire of its meth pipe scheme. When I sent the ministry of health a follow-up email covering these points and asked what, if anything, Ford planned to do going forward, I received no reply. This duplicitous behaviour was unsurprising, though, because it is actually characteristic of Ford’s approach to harm reduction. This is something I learned, quite disappointingly, while reporting on the national “safer supply” diversion scandal. Real reform or the safer supply status quo? Safer supply refers to the experimental practice of prescribing free recreational drugs—typically hydromorphone, a heroin-strength opioid—to addicts under the assumption that this mitigates use of riskier street substances. Popularized in the early 2020s, public support for safer supply cratered after evidence mounted that recipients sell or trade a significant portion of these drugs on the black market. The federal government originally funded a constellation of safer supply “pilot programs,” spending over a hundred million dollars to incentivize national uptake, only to cut support in early 2025. Many Canadians believe that this killed safer supply prescribing, but, since health care falls under provincial jurisdiction, the practice has survived in most of the country. Alberta effectively banned safer supply prescribing in 2022, and British Columbia mandated, in 2025, that all safer supply drugs be consumed under medical supervision to cut down on diversion. But what has Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, done? Absolutely nothing. Addiction physicians now describe Ontario as the “wild west” of safer supply. Not only are there no requirements that these drugs be consumed under supervision, but prescribing volumes appear to outstrip those of any other jurisdiction in Canada. While safer supply patients in B.C. are usually limited to 14 eight-mg hydromorphone pills per day, physicians report that, in Ontario, addicts regularly receive 30-40 hydromorphone pills per day, and sometimes 50 or more. For context: just two or three pills can induce an overdose in an opioid-naive user, such as a curious teenager. Ontarian clinics have also been installing video terminals in partnering pharmacies and remotely prescribing enormous volumes of hydromorphone and other dangerous drugs to addicts after only a few minutes of consultation. This system is highly profitable for prescribers and pharmacies—raking in millions of dollars in billings to the province—yet ruinous for communities and addicts themselves. In May 2025, Dr. Janel Gracey and Dr. Brooke Noftle, both experienced addiction physicians in London, Ontario, sent a letter to the Ford government warning about safer supply, which they described as “a perfect system for financial abuse of our healthcare system.” “The most common scenario we see is pharmacists who associate with or recruit physicians who, in return for free or minimal overhead expenses, work in often virtual settings and prescribe opioids plus often as many other types of medication as possible (frequently with minimal proper patient assessment) to maximize pharmacy profits… due to repetitive, brief and often unnecessarily frequent patient encounters, physician profits are extremely high as well,” wrote the two doctors, who also warned of rampant diversion. They told me late last year that they received no response from the province. In early 2024, Ford published a public letter lambasting the Trudeau government for supporting safer supply, claiming that  his government was “completely in the dark” about “the quantity of controlled and illegal substances they dispense.” Yet, Ford could have unilaterally ended safer supply, as Alberta had already done the year before. And, given that these drugs are covered by provincial insurance, it should have actually been trivial to track where, and in what quantities, they are being prescribed (as British Columbia already does). Later that year, during an unrelated announcement, Ford called safer supply “unacceptable” and said that the experiment “needs to stop” so that treatment and detox beds can be funded instead. “They get to go up there (safer supply sites) and get endless, endless amounts of drugs and guess what they do? They go out, and they sell it and get other people addicted, and then they go out and get stronger drugs,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, the federal government is the biggest drug dealer in the entire country.” Yet, no discernible reforms followed. Ford’s bluster wascynical political theatre: rather than end a bad policy, he shirked accountability and blamed his political opponents instead. The parallels to the crack and meth pipe scandal are concerning—we see, again, a provincial government that values performance over substance, and which wants to be seen as tough on harmful drug use while quietly enabling it.