VANCOUVER — Startling statistics on fentanyl-related overdoses and deaths have prompted police and health authorities to issue a public warning — particularly to recreational pot users.
Vancouver police are now finding fentanyl turning up in batches of seized marijuana, Const. Sandra Glendinning said at a Monday news conference held to highlight the lethal risks of the synthetic drug.
She said police will announce today that a major fentanyl ring has been busted, but didn’t provide any further details.
According to B.C. Coroners Service spokesman Vince Stancato, about 25 per cent of all overdose deaths in the province in 2014 involved the highly toxic fentanyl, compared with five per cent of the overdose deaths in 2012.
Some 84 deaths last year out of a total of 336 fatal drug overdoses were fentanyl-related.
“It is often mixed with heroin and cocaine,” Stancato said. “The key message here is, fentanyl is a contributor.”
The synthetic narcotic, which is 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, can be used in a number of ways. It comes in a powder, liquid or a pill, and it can be smoked, snorted or injected.
Vancouver, Langley, Surrey, Maple Ridge, Nanaimo, Prince George and Fort St. John are the predominant places to see drug overdoses, Stancato said.
Nanaimo has seen an increase in overdose deaths where fentanyl has been detected since October 2013, said Central Island Medical Health officer Paul Hasselback.
Since then, Hasselback said, agencies in the Nanaimo area have been warning drug users about the increasing presence of fentanyl in drug supplies.
Users are told not to use alone, to know their sources, to start with a small amount and to learn about naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of narcotic overdoses, he said.
Urine testing has confirmed fentanyl is commonly incorporated into drugs in use, Hasselback said.
Glendinning could not say if any deaths in Vancouver were due to pot laced with fentanyl. But she insisted police are seeing fentanyl in marijuana.
Vancouver Coastal Health’s Dr. Mark Lysyshyn said the new campaign is directed at recreational drug users who may not even know the substance they are taking is laced with fentanyl.
He said in the last few years, they have been actively spreading the word in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside about the fentanyl additives in hard drugs, and are now getting the warning message out to people who may just dabble in drugs occasionally.
“We aren’t seeing a lot of deaths in the Downtown Eastside,” he said. “It is recreational drug users. These people are getting the drug and have no tolerance to it.”
Someone suffering from a fentanyl overdose will show signs they are seriously ill, he said. “People will have trouble talking and walking and be breathing irregularly and may pass out,” he said. “It is extremely toxic. You don’t need very much.”
To understand the risks of using drugs that may contain fentanyl, Glendinning recommended going to knowyoursource.ca.
— With files from the Times Colonist and The Canadian Press
