MARCH 15, 2025

Dear reader,

As Donald Trump continues to wage his nonsensical and calamitous trade war, he seems fixated on one word: fentanyl. The president has become stuck on the idea that the drug is flowing south from Canada to the US in mass quantities—despite evidence from his own government debunking the claim: according to the US Customs and Border Patrol Agency, less than one per cent of fentanyl seized at American borders since last September came from Canada. 

Of course, this particular game of geopolitics has far more to do with ego than with logic. So, with tariffs looming, Canadian officials raced to appease Trump, appointing a Fentanyl Czar with a mandate to detect, disrupt and dismantle the drug trade.

While Trump’s obsession with cross-border flow is bonkers, the presence of fentanyl in Toronto is very real and very harmful. And, as detailed in this 2021 feature about a family physician secretly slinging fentanyl prescriptions, the drug is reaching Canadians in unexpected ways. 

For more great long-reads from Toronto Life, subscribe to our print edition here.

—Madi Haslam, digital editor

George Otto was a respected family physician with a bustling clinic in the northwest corner of the city. But he had a secret: after hours, he was running a booming fentanyl business. The untold story of the doctor who fuelled a drug crisis

BY BRETT POPPLEWELL | MARCH 22, 2021

After immigrating to Toronto from Uganda, George Otto worked hard to build his reputation as a trusted doctor in one of the city’s most marginalized communities. At his clinic, located in a strip mall near Jane and Wilson, he presented as a hard-working public servant, the embodiment of prosperity and generosity. Little did his patients know, he was secretly writing fentanyl prescriptions under the table and making a fortune. This haunting story by Brett Popplewell chronicles how one doctor fuelled the opioid crisis and destroyed hundreds of lives.

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