The Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) is what we use when an investigation might include drug charges. This includes substances available by prescription, as well as illegal substances.
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Not all prescription medications are controlled substances under the CDSA. We generally deal with only a few substances available by prescription, but deal more with non-pharmaceutical substances such as cocaine, produced from the coca plant or methamphetamine.
In addition, substances such as morphine, a derivative of the opium poppy, can be prescribed, but it is also an abused street drug, whereas heroin, also a derivative of the opium poppy, is straight up illegal.
I just want to make sure that readers understand that the classification of drugs can get complicated, as the CDSA often specifies the chemical composition of substances.
Fentanyl is a substance that is being heavily abused and that we are seizing, while at the same time, it has a medical use.
If a person has a prescription for an identified substance under the CDSA, they are in legal possession of it but are not allowed to share it or sell it.
Trafficking in a controlled substance may merely mean giving it to someone, as there is no requirement that it is, or was, sold. Generally, when a prescription medication is seized by police, it was likely obtained legally by a patient but then sold into the underground drug world. Some of this would also include drugs shipped or smuggled from other countries and then sold at the street level.
Some drugs are illegally produced here in Canada, and this is also covered under the CDSA. As the CDSA is an Act of Parliament, it takes time to judicially modify, which is usually done by adding new substances as either legitimate or criminal chemists create them.
When police seize something believed to be a controlled substance, we can only report to the public that we suspect it to be a particular substance.
This is until it is analyzed by a laboratory and certified to be a particular substance. We do have presumptive test kits we can use locally, which are quite accurate, but we do not rely on them in the court prosecution process.
Once a lab analyses something, it issues a Certificate of Analysis, which is presented in evidence showing what the seized substance consists of.
Lately, some of our seizures of an individual substance have been containing fentanyl, ketamine and caffeine. These will be in varying quantities as the substances are not made to a pharmaceutical quality. This has always been another reason why police agencies warn against using street drugs, as users are not guaranteed what a substance contains, and overdoses may result.
Our CDSA investigations go to a dedicated Crown prosecutor, which is a big benefit as they specialize in such prosecutions. The charges might range from possession to trafficking to manufacturing, and within each charge, there are numerous factors and elements of the offences involved in prosecuting them.
– Staff Sgt. Jerry Nutbown, is the NCO in charge of the Lloydminster RCMP detachment’s General Investigation Section. Stay tuned for future articles from the Lloydminster RCMP.
This column was originally published in the Oct. 30, 2025, edition of the Meridian Source.
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