VANCOUVER — A Vancouver dollar store is selling fentanyl test strips for $1.25, something harm reduction activists say is a good idea.
Sarah Blyth, a volunteer at the Overdose Prevention Society, said the group discovered the selling of the strips, which resemble a take-home pregnancy test and are made by Rapid Self Test Inc., when a volunteer went to the Dollar Tree to buy cups.
Blyth, a former Vancouver park board commissioner, said they tested several different types of illicit street drugs on Saturday with the dollar store kits and found that everything tested positive for fentanyl. That does not necessarily mean the dollar store tests are accurate.
She said that this was the first time she had heard of a dollar store selling fentanyl tests in Vancouver for such a cheap price. Coco Culbertson, senior manager of programs at the PHS Community Services Society, also said she believed it was a new item. A spokesman for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control had not heard of stores selling the kits, although, according to the company’s website, the tests are also available at Walmart and Pharmasave.
Drug checking using fentanyl testing strips has been taking place at Insite, the supervised consumption site in Vancouver, since summer 2016. It was expanded in September to the Powell Street Getaway and overdose-prevention sites in Vancouver Coastal Health’s region. The testing strips use a similar technology to the ones found at the dollar store, but are a different brand.
The Dollar Tree on Pender Street confirmed Saturday they were selling home drug tests, one for fentanyl and one for marijuana. A clerk at the store on Commercial Drive said they had sold out and were waiting for more.
“I don’t know how reliable these tests are,” Blyth said. “But if people buy [illicit] drugs and they can access these tests for a good price, then I see that as a good thing.”
Blyth added that testing for fentanyl is just one more harm-reduction step to prevent overdose deaths. Other steps include never using drugs alone, using at a supervised consumption site, and having access to the fentanyl antidote naloxone.
She cautioned that the tests don’t test for other dangerous substances such as carfentanil, which is 100 times more potent than fentanyl.
The province continues to be gripped by an opioid crisis, one that led to B.C. declaring a public health emergency in 2016.
More than 1,400 British Columbians died last year from illicit drug overdoses, and hundreds more have died this year. The powerful opiate fentanyl is believed to have caused most of the fatalities.
Health Canada could not immediately be reached for comment.
