Canada-based Indian-origin media personality Nitin Chopra has sounded the alarm over the blatant online sale of doda—a banned opiate made from crushed poppy husks—through Facebook Marketplace.
Sharing a screenshot of a listing allegedly from Brampton, a hub of the Punjabi diaspora, Chopra wrote:
“These people are selling on FB Marketplace openly & illegally. How do our law enforcement catch & punish them for this illegal activity?”
The warning has revived concerns about the return of a drug once openly available in Canada’s Punjabi community.
For years, doda—commonly brewed into tea or milk—was the substance of choice for many, particularly taxi drivers, truck drivers and farm labourers from Punjab working in Canada.
Prior to 2010, it was sold almost casually in local meat shops in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), until Health Canada formally declared it illegal.
In court proceedings that year, Justice Bruce Durno described doda as “more harmful than marijuana or other ‘soft’ drugs” and “highly addictive,” recommending harsher sentences for offenders, closer to those for cocaine.
Despite the ban, the underground trade flourished, with gangs—many linked to Punjabi networks in British Columbia—trafficking the drug. At one stage, “dial-for-dope” hotlines allowed users to order doda for street-corner delivery. Now, the marketplace has shifted online, with Facebook posts allegedly making the substance more accessible than ever.
Chopra’s public appeal has sparked renewed calls for Canadian law enforcement to crack down on the online drug trade before it fuels a fresh wave of addiction in the community.
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