Health-care workers and the RCMP on Sunday canvassed Surrey’s Whalley area warning people of a disturbing new trend in which crack cocaine is being laced with the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl.
With 36 overdoses over the weekend in Whalley, Mounties, health-care and social workers walked through the gritty area putting up warning notices, handing out pamphlets and talking to drug addicts and the homeless about the critical situation.
“It is alarming, the number of overdoses this weekend,” said Fraser Health chief medical officer Dr. Victoria Lee.
Lee said at first they didn’t know what type of street drugs were tainted, but said by Sunday they had lab results showing crack being sold in Whalley that had high traces of both fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl, an even more potent synthetic opioid. Among the overdoses this weekend, Lee said, fortunately no one died. But she said they needed to use a large amount of Naloxone, which reverses the effects of opioids, to stop users from dying.
In past overdoses and deaths linked to fentanyl, it was often mixed in with substances like heroin, Lee notes. But seeing fentanyl mixed in with crack is new and very concerning, she said. “In terms of advice, the best prevention is to avoid using crack cocaine altogether,” she said. Anyone who fails to heed the warnings, she stresses, should have a Naloxone kit and not use street drugs alone.
Once they began seeing the large number of overdoses, Lee said they checked with other jurisdictions around B.C. “We are not seeing a big spike in other regions,” she said. In Vancouver, Hugh Lampkin, spokesman for the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, said that hearing fentanyl is now being put in crack is worrisome and unprecedented. “That has the potential for a lot of trouble,” he said.
Shayne Williams, executive director of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society, said hearing that crack is now tainted with fentanyl will lead to more overdoses and deaths if it isn’t addressed immediately. “It is incredibly alarming if you are a drug user right now,” he said.
At the Lookout’s Whalley facility, Williams said staff had to deal with 17 overdoses of the 36 reported in the area.
“This is very new, as typically fentanyl is put in heroin,” he said. “It makes it more problematic and more challenging for front-line service-providers. As fentanyl turns up in these stimulants like cocaine, there will be a call for safe-inhalation sites.”
James Booth, 55, who is homeless and lives on the sidewalk along 135A Street in Whalley, said it has been heartbreaking to see friends and acquaintances taken to hospital. “They didn’t know fentanyl is being put in crack,” said Booth. “People are bring warned (now).”
Booth said he doesn’t do hard drugs, but has a Naloxone kit ready if one of his friends has an overdose. “I have used it many times,” he said.
RCMP Asst. Commissioner Bill Fordy said in a statement: ”We know that the presence of substances, which are 50 to 1,000 times more toxic than other narcotics, can increase the risk of overdose. Drugs can also be cross-contaminated with these other products, which means even non-opiate-users may succumb to an overdose.”
jcolebourn@postmedia.com
