What started as an opioid addiction epidemic caused in part by Percs and oxy's (Sackler family/Perdue Pharma) and such, became worse as people could no longer legally access them. Fentanyl patches were being stolen/robbed and sold at incredibly high prices. (One patch could get you 100cad a while back) Add on top of the heroin and other narcotic use already happening and shit gets crazy.

But, someone, somewhere, realized fentanyl could be made extremely cheap. That was someone in China.

And fentanyl could be mixed with shitty grade drugs to make them more potent and more addictive.

It could also make them lethal.

So, now you have foreign govs looking the other way as known chemicals are imported and used to manufacture and ship fentanyl to countries with increasing drug addiction problems.

Then, other local idiots figure out how to do it. With less experience, and who give no fucks, make shittier grade / less stable fentanyl and add it to pills, heroin, etc. and people start dropping.

Addicts of a certain degree don't care. Just need the next fix. Even at the known risk of immediate death.

Then you have the kid who decides they'll do a line of blow for the first time and happen to snort a grain that wasn't mixed in well enough. Small enough to not be noticeable. Large enough to kill them because they have zero tolerance to that type of drug in their system.

So. China/triads. Motorcycle "clubs", and other gangs. And the Sackler family.

Those are the people responsible for all of this.