Police warn of fentanyl danger locally

Two near-fatal overdoses in one day add to growing concern that powerful drug is spreading

CAMBRIDGE — A Cambridge man almost died after taking fentanyl Wednesday morning and was revived after he was injected with naloxone, a drug given to people who overdose on opioids.

Waterloo Regional Police received a 911 call from a Galt area residence at 8:40 a.m. requesting help for two people who were overdosing on the potent drug, said Insp. Mike Haffner.

When police arrived, the 39-year-old man had been given naloxone and someone else in the house had performed CPR. Emergency personnel continued with CPR when they arrived.

Haffner said the man was unresponsive and his vital signs were absent before the naloxone treatment.

A woman had also overdosed, but did not require the immediate attention the man needed to survive.

For police, the two near-fatal overdoses are troubling and point to a growing concern that bootleg fentanyl has arrived.

“We believe that fentanyl is becoming more prevalent in the region,” said Haffner.

Police said the drugs were purchased in the area of Victoria Avenue and Grand Avenue South. Officers were at a house on Wednesday.

Fentanyl overdoses have reached crisis levels in Western Canada and the northern United States.

Earlier this summer, the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council issued an advisory on bootleg versions of fentanyl, which are illicitly produced and highly potent painkillers.

It warned the record-setting overdose deaths from this powerful opioid would

soon be knocking on our doors.

British Columbia declared a public health emergency earlier this year after a significant spike in drug-related overdoses and deaths.

Bootleg fentanyls come in a range of strengths, all the way up to a level used to sedate large animals, making it 10,000 times more potent than morphine and deadly to humans in very small doses.

Fentanyl has also been showing up in cocaine and other drugs, which means people can be taking it without knowing, police said.

Bootleg fentanyl is often created in clandestine labs and can be a mixture of heroin, cocaine and crystal meth laced with fentanyl, said police. It can be in a pill form or powder.

More than 700 people died in Ontario from opioid-related causes in 2014, a 266 per cent increase since 2002.