Police warn drug users about ‘purple fentanyl’

WATERLOO REGION — Waterloo Regional Police are warning drug users of a potentially powerful form of fentanyl that could be on local streets.

The “purple fentanyl” looks like children’s playdough and has a purple hue.

Police, along with the Waterloo Region Drug Integrated Drugs Strategy, issued an overdose alert Tuesday about the fentanyl.

Staff Sgt. Slodan Lackovic, head of the drug branch with the police service, said that during an investigation last Thursday officers arrested a Kitchener man and seized four grams of suspected fentanyl and crystal meth.

The fentanyl was purple in colour and similar to a fentanylheroin mix seized in Hamilton and later linked to multiple overdoses there.

Police are asking those using drugs to be cautious, and to use it with others and try a small amount first.

Warning users is a fairly new tactic by police but a necessary one, said Police Chief Bryan Larkin.

“This crisis is something we have never seen so we have to take a different approach,” he said.

Larkin is a proponent of harmreduction strategies and encourages people “to be smart about their use.”

“It’s the reality we are living in,” he said.

Last year, 71 people died of opioid-related overdoses.

This year, there have been 12 overdose deaths: two in January, three in February and seven so far this month.

“We are concerned about a potent batch of drugs circulating. We believe fentanyl is at the source of it,” Larkin said.

Lackovic said it’s the first time police have seen purple fentanyl

in the region.

“We normally want to test the substance first but we felt it was important to warn people ahead of time,” he said.

Police said they are particularly concerned about two recent double overdoses.

In the first case, a man and woman overdosed together and both died on March 17.

They were using the drug in a Kitchener home and were found by a relative.

“It’s very tragic,” Lackovic said.

In the second double overdose four days later, two men, in their 40s, overdosed. One man died, the other was revived by paramedics.

Lackovic said that when paramedics and police arrive at these calls, they are noticing more naloxone is being used.

This month alone, naloxone has been used in five cases.