Bracing for it
Increase in number of deaths and overdoses expected.
Everybody’s bracing — because there’s nothing worse than a preventable death. In Nova Scotia, emergency room staff have already been trained, and training’s underway for primary care paramedics. In Newfoundland and Labrador, RCMP officers are getting training now, and both the RCMP and frontline paramedics have new drug treatments. Governments in the region are even distributing drug response kits to admitted drug users. It’s something that’s expected right across the region, and while the first wave of deaths and near-deaths is already here, many more cases are expected. Law enforcement and medical officials are expecting a big increase in the number of deaths and overdoses as the result of the arrival in this region of much greater volumes of the drug fentanyl, and of illegal copycat versions of the drug as well.
It’s a synthetic opioid, often described as being 100 times more powerful than heroin, a drug that’s been implicated in a rising number of deaths, essentially travelling from west to east across the country. The problem with fentanyl is that it is so powerful: the drug’s dose is normally measured in mere micrograms — a millionth of a gram — so it’s easy to understand why dosages cut in criminal labs may wind up being far, far stronger than users suspect. That means people die: in B.C., where illegal supplies of the drug have made their way onto the streets from Chinese manufacturers, the percentage of deaths where fentanyl has been found have risen from five per cent of drug deaths to 62 per cent in just four years.
So far this year, B.C. has already had 488 deaths connected to fentanyl. And victims may not even have known they were taking the drug, or that they were facing that kind of risk. The drug is cheap, and is often mixed with other, more expensive drugs without the user being any the wiser.
It’s added, for example, to strengthen the effects of poorquality heroin: it’s also popping up in other drug formulations, and even on its own under a variety of street names. One description of its potency suggests, in pure form, a dose equivalent to three grains of sugar can kill a full-grown adult. Like oxycontin, fentanyl was originally designed to be a slow-release drug for people suffering cancer pain, especially those in palliative care.
It is now a regularly-abused drug, even in prisons: in one notable Newfoundland and Labrador case, fentanyl patches were attached to the corner of fake legal documents that were mailed to a provincial inmate, made to look like they were fastening pages of the documents together.
A fentanyl overdose is like many other opioid overdoses: victims simply stop breathing. Given that fentanyl stays in body tissue and keeps traveling in the bloodstream, immediate intervention is needed. The treatment? Paramedics and police are being equipped with naloxone, a stimulant that counteracts the effects of opioids.
It’s been used in the past to revive victims of heroin overdoses, but the issue now is to get the drug into the hands of first responders who will be able to administer it as fast as possible. There are plenty who might say that drug addicts reap what they sow, but that’s just simple rhetoric and hard-hearted, to boot. No one should accept the death of young or otherwise healthy individuals as somehow being an acceptable punishment for their behaviour or addiction. It may well be something that doesn’t arrive in quite the way the authorities expect: the thing is, given the amount of resources already dedicated to trying to treat new overdose victims, it’s pretty clear our provincial governments are expecting it. Paramedics and police officers, believe me, are dreading it.
“So far this year, B.C. has already had 488 deaths connected to fentanyl. And victims may not even have known they were taking the drug, or that they were facing that kind of risk.”