POOR-MAN'S HEROIN ARRIVES IN B.C.

New Poppy Drug Used In India And Pakistan Troubling South Asian Community

Surrey police have made the first strike in B.C. against "doda," a
"highly addictive" opium-derived drug that is being openly sold
throughout the Lower Mainland and is tearing up the South Asian
community, says Surrey Newton MLA Harry Bains.

An RCMP drug unit raided a large manufacturer in a busy Surrey
shopping centre on Wednesday and allegedly turned up hundreds of
kilograms of poppy pods and a "large quantity" of the related
substance doda, which police say is known as "poor-man's heroin." It
was the first large-scale seizure, of doda in B.C., according to RCMP.

Police say doda is made from crushing opium poppy pods into a powder
which is then mixed with tea. The concoction is popular in the South
Asian community, and commonly used by truckers and taxi drivers.

Reported effects of doda are intense feelings of pleasure followed by
calm drowsiness, red eyes, slurred speech, mood swings, constipation,
loss of concentration, impotence, and finally addiction, according to police.

A large, industrial-scale milling and manufacturing operation was
raided but police will not disclose the location. Four unnamed people
were arrested and later released.

Bains told The Province the drug is cheap and easily sold to minors,
and he informed Surrey RCMP about doda after seniors in the South
Asian community told him the drug has destroyed many families in
India and Pakistan, and they are concerned it's increasingly taking
hold in B.C.

Surrey RCMP are forwarding the seized product to a Health Canada Lab
to confirm the presence of illegal opium and its derivatives and
expect charges to follow "after lab results are known."

The legality of doda is murky.

A January 2009 letter to Bains from the office of B.C.'s
solicitor-general says some doda samples seized in Toronto did not
contain enough opium to rate a positive test. Consequently, those
samples didn't result in charges.

Bains said he hopes the Surrey bust nets charges and sets a precedent in B.C.