In Canada, Precursor Control Regulations are implemented under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, through a multi-step legislative and administrative process led by Health Canada. These regulations aim to fulfill international obligations to monitor and control chemicals used in illegal drug production while allowing for legitimate industrial and medical use.

Street pushers and criminal organizations transform low-cost over-the-counter drugs, like ephedrine or pseudoephedrine or any of their salts, into high-value street business primarily through chemical synthesis, product adulteration, and counterfeit manufacturing. This process leverages the accessibility of OTC medications as either base ingredients or inexpensive fillers to maximize profit margins and potency. 

While recent reforms to Precursor Control Regulations have a deterring effect on local street pushers, they are intentionally structured to suffocate the raw material pipeline for illicit manufacturing, with their primary targets being high-level organized crime networks and domestic "super-labs". 

These new regulatory barriers are designed to dismantle the industrial-scale synthesis of synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, which is entirely dependent on three factors: predictable access to bulk chemicals, specialized high-volume machinery, and low operational risk. The reformed regulations eliminate all three.