such as heroin in popularity among addicts. Armed robberies, break-and-enters, pilferage by employees and other losses from individual drug stores are still the biggest leak in the system; 296,000 tablets of oxycodone (the active ingredient in OxyContin) went missing in 2010, the most recent year for which Health Canada could provide statistics. That number is actually down from 352,000 in 2005. On the other hand, 168,000 doses of the drug were stolen from or lost by producers and other "licensed dealers" in 2010, a 14-fold increase from 2005. According to an Ontario Provincial Police presentation at a Public Safety Canada workshop last June, the minimum street price for one tablet of OxyContin is about $40. That would make the combined black-market value of losses from pharmacies and licensed dealers approximately $18.5-million in 2010, though it is unclear how much ended up on the street. Canadians are the world's second-biggest consumers of opioid painkillers per capita, and both addiction to the drugs and fatal overdoses have grown rapidly in recent years, accounting for more deaths than drowning in Ontario. "This isn't some trivial problem," said Prof. Fischer. "We're now looking at a problem that is a major source of disease and death. These drugs are killing a lot of people." Health Canada is trying to get to the bottom of why the volume of losses from licensed dealers is increasing, said Johanna Beaulieu, director of the department's office of controlled substances. "Of course it is a concern," she said. "Any report