Fentanyl finding way into Sask. jails
Corrections officials have antidote available for potential overdoses
Fentanyl has been found within all the province’s adult correctional centres, a provincial spokesman has confirmed.
The drug has made the news repeatedly, blamed for a rash of deaths throughout the country. As with other trends in the illegal drug world, Saskatchewan has been far from immune, having witnessed a number of deaths and non-fatal overdoses related to this and other opioids.
Drew Wilby, spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, said one other pattern has proved true here — that what’s available on the streets is also available in jail.
“What happens in a correctional facility is usually a pretty close correlation to what’s happening on the street,” Wilby said. “If there’s any street drug that’s out, chances are likely they’re trying to get it into the facility in some way or another. To use fentanyl as an example, we’ve confiscated fentanyl pills in I believe all of our major correctional facilities over the last couple of years. So as those things appear on the street, they also appear within the walls of the facility.”
Those looking to bring contraband inside the jail have resorted to a number of methods, such as the use of drones and drug mules who deliberately get themselves arrested so they can bring secreted items inside. When it comes to the extremely hazardous powdered fentanyl, staff is told to remain constantly alert to the possibility of it arriving via mail.
“The challenge for us is to stay ahead of the way that those elements of contraband are being brought in,” Wilby said, referring to more potent drugs like fentanyl and crystal meth. “With the size of those and of course being smaller and easier to potentially bring into a facility, it’s important for us to figure out how that’s happening and make sure that it doesn’t continue.”
The potency of fentanyl means it can be easier to bring inside but, once there, can have a devastating effect — as can other drugs.
While not confirmed as fentanyl, several in-custody overdoses made the news recently, including one in which three inmates apparently overdosed while at court in Regina. In another, a coroner’s jury was asked to consider the case of a youth who died after overdosing on methamphetamine while in custody at Saskatoon’s Kilburn Hall.
Wilby added there have been a number of other instances in which provincial jail staff have had to administer naloxone. All correctional officers in adult facilities and workers in youth facilities have been trained in the use of naloxone (under the brand name Narcan), and Wilby said the opiate antidote was used five times in the adult facilities between February and Dec. 1, the last date numbers were available.
Nurses in these facilities are able to administer injectable naloxone while deputy sheriffs have the antidote available at the courthouses and within transport vehicles, Wilby added.
He said while there hasn’t been a lot of fentanyl found inside the jails, corrections staff and those making up a drug task force — consisting of several government ministries and community partners, including police — are evervigilant to the possibility of more.
“We try and find unique ways of dealing with that and addressing that and working with our partners in other jurisdictions to see what’s working for them, whether that be looking at the use of ion scanners or body scanners or something of that nature,” Wilby said. “And so we continue to do that work and try to find the best ways of stopping these (drugs) before they do come into the walls of the facility.”