Illicit drugs to be tracked in B.C. with chemical fingerprinting and AI

A fentanyl test strip is used at Vancouver Coastal Health in Vancouver, Tuesday, January, 21, 2020. (Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press)

Scientists and police in British Columbia are working together on what they hope will be a game-changing “chemical fingerprinting” program for illicit drugs, that one senior officer likened to DNA testing.

The provincially funded program will use technology developed at the University of British Columbia by Aidos Innovations to track the source and destination of individual batches of street drugs.

The Aidos lab at UBC will use artificial intelligence to generate what the provincial government says will be “actionable insights” for police, predicting how illicit drugs are moving across the province, while also helping to target public health alerts when toxic additives are detected.

Victoria’s Chief Constable Fiona Wilson said the technology had “potential to be the most significant advancement in drug intelligence and public health” in her almost three decades of policing.

“I actually compare it to the advent of DNA, when it first emerged,” she told a news conference at UBC.

Dr. Matthew Roberts, managing director of Aidos Innovations, said the two-year pilot program, which is already received its first samples from police, doesn’t just identify drugs.

“It allows us to look backwards to understood how they were produced in the first place,” he said.

The technology allows investigators to anticipate how drugs move over time, he added.

Robotic instruments developed on campus test will test seized drugs for impurities.

“Then, using AI, we can actually back calculate the method of production,” he said. “So, this goes well beyond typical drug-checking sort of technology by using those two layers together.”

Wilson said analysis results will be available through a dashboard available to investigators and others.

But the program, which the province is funding with $300,000 per year, won’t be used in prosecutions, and nor will drugs obtained in prosecuted cases be tested.

“The information gathered through this work is not used for criminal investigations or for seeking charges at this time,” Wilson said.

“It is intended to improve our understanding of the illicit drug supply, support front-line responders and public health actions.”

The pilot is “proof of concept,” and its use could be broadened in time, Wilson said.

“Our hope is that the results of the pilot project will be such, that with further engagement with Crown and the coroners service and other partners that eventually, we will be able to use the information gleaned from the analysis and the dashboard for criminal prosecution. We are not there yet.”

Friday’s announcement comes just three days after B.C. marked the 10th anniversary of the declaration of a public health emergency around illicit toxic drugs that have since killed more than 18,000 people since.

B.C. Public Safety Minister Nina Krieger said the testing program was a “bold” step in responding to the toxic drug crisis.

Health Minister Josie Osborne said one the greatest challenge of this crisis has been the unpredictability of the toxic drug supply.

“The track-and-trace technology helps us better understand where the greatest harms are coming from, and these kinds of insights into the illicit drug supply can be used to inform responses in conjunction with community drug checking,” she said.

This report by Wolfgang Depner of The Canadian Press was first published April 17, 2026.