![]() | A life-and-death battle against drug dealers is being waged on the sprawling Blood reserve in southwestern Alberta. Canada’s largest reserve has been on the front lines of a fentanyl epidemic. Payments in the community are well known — a day after welfare comes out or a day after child tax benefits, and Canada Pension, dealers are everywhere. | ![]() |
![]() | Dealers who have been banished from the reserve simply set up shop in communities on the edge. They find drug mules, usually addicted band members, to carry fentanyl onto the First Nation and sell it. "We do have a lot of people who are in vulnerable situations and some of them don’t know how to deal with certain things” said a community leader. “We have dealers who come in from outside the community and take advantage." | ![]() |