Fentanyl Kills Kids
By Police Commissioner Diane Colley-Urquhart on February 12 2016
The street use of the narcotic fentanyl is a public health crisis in Calgary. It is killing and maiming our kids. In 2015, 90 people died from a fatal, unintentional overdose, after taking just one tablet of fentanyl in Calgary – that’s more than all the homicides and traffic fatalities in 2015 combined. Last year in Alberta, there were 272 overdose deaths involving fentanyl, up from more than 100 in 2014.
Fentanyl is a synthetic narcotic 100 times more lethal than morphine, which makes it highly addictive. Illegal fentanyl is made in clandestine drug factories, cutting it with any number of chemical compounds and binding agents. These shady operators use lethal ingredients such as caffeine, xylazine (animal tranquilizer), cocaine and/or heroin. Thousands of these pills are pumped out of machines, packaged up and shipped to Calgary from China where there is no oversight or regulatory controls. The strength and mix is unknown ‘til autopsy. These mass production operators can make the drug for cheap, thus flooding our communities and making it easily accessible and attainable. They are even producing them in different colours and shapes to make them appear “cooler”.
Drug dealers have no idea how much fentanyl might be in the pills they are selling and frankly, they don’t care. A deadly dose of fentanyl is just 2 mg, which is equal to two grains of salt. However, a kid’s response depends on their size, metabolism and tolerance. The Calgary Police Service (CPS) and the Medical Examiner’s Office have seen a wide variety of concentrations found in the pills being sold on the streets of Calgary. The highest levels have come back at 4.7 to 5.6 mg per tablet. If they don’t kill our kids, they get them addicted. This concentration is more than enough to kill. Innocent kids take one and can die instantly.
Once addicted, our young people will do anything to get money to acquire more of the drug from organized crime operators in our community. CPS report that residential property crimes and thefts throughout Calgary have escalated substantially in the past 12 months.
High concentrations of fentanyl can result in decreasing irregular and shallow respirations, muscle rigidity, seizures, unconsciousness, coma and/or death. Fentanyl overdoses often go unnoticed because it may appear that the person is simply sleeping it off, but are actually left to die. If kids don’t die, they can end up with severe brain damage and have no recollection as to what happened to them.
Walk-in clinics can now prescribe and supply naloxone, a drug that can temporarily reverse a fentanyl overdose, buying time for the user to seek potentially life-saving medical treatment. Alberta Health Services (AHS), with funding from Alberta Health, is distributing 4,000 take-home naloxone kits and providing training as part of its response to the rapid rise in fentanyl-related deaths in the province.
The kits will be available at walk-in clinics, in addition to the eight existing harm reduction sites, making it easier for Albertans at risk of fentanyl overdose to increase their chance of survival in life-or-death situations. Additional sites such as emergency department, correctional facilities and addiction and mental health clinics will also have kits available for clients and patients.
The naloxone kits contain instructions on how and when to administer the drug, two vials of naloxone, syringes, alcohol swab, latex gloves and a one-way rescue breathing mask. The training provides instruction on mouth-to-mouth breathing and how to administer naloxone.
Naloxone, in combination with mouth-to-mouth breathing, is safe and effective in temporarily reversing the effects of a fentanyl overdose, providing it is administered immediately. Users then need to call 911 for further medical treatment. A full list of the walk-in dispensing sites is available online at www.drugsfool.ca
Please talk to your kids or any young people you know about the dangers of fentanyl. Anyone with information about illicit drug dealing is asked to contact the CPS at 403-266-1234, or Crime Stoppers anonymously. We need to do all we can to curb this public health crisis in our community.
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