Fear that fentanyl is heading north

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This article was published 21/11/2016 (3025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Cases of people overdosing on fentanyl in Thompson has aboriginal leaders concerned the potentially fatal opioid has migrated north.

The drug has surfaced in the urban community of Thompson but not on any reserves at least as far as is known, said Sheila North Wilson, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO).

“All I am really telling you is we’re hearing of some presence (of fentanyl) in the north. We don’t know the numbers or magnitude,” said North Wilson.

None of the cases has proven fatal, she said.

Thompson, 760 kilometres north of Winnipeg, has a high population of indigenous people from MKO communities.

“I did a quick ask around and I’m not hearing of fentanyl having a presence in the north,” said Inez Vystrcil-Spence, MKO director of health and social services.

Communities can’t be complacent. First Nations have had problems with abuse of illegally obtained prescription drugs such as Oxycontin. Fentanyl most frequently piggybacks on Oxycontin, but has also been mixed with other street drugs such as crack cocaine and even marijuana.

Vystrcil-Spence said it isn’t too early to start stocking northern emergency health centres in urban centres such as Thompson, Flin Flon and The Pas with fentanyl antidote, naloxone. First responders in Winnipeg are being supplied with the antidote as they react to an increasing number of drug overdoses.

A two-day national conference on the opioid crisis wrapped up in Ottawa Saturday with the federal government promising legislative changes to deal with the opioid crisis coming within a few weeks.

Following the conference, Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen said the province will expand access to naloxone.

As well, Manitoba will improve its data collection of drug overdoses, and better monitor legal prescriptions for painkillers.

However, the province isn’t yet looking at introducing a safe-drug-use site as one of the possible solutions, even though the federal government intends to amend legislation making it easier to get such sites established.

Goertzen said he would rather see an analysis about the effect of existing harm-reduction strategies, such as the Winnipeg Regional Health Authorities safe-needle exchange program, before even considering a safe-drug-use site.

There were seven deaths in Manitoba linked to fentanyl in 2014. That rose to about 18 in 2015.

On Thursday, Dr. John Younes, Manitoba’s acting chief medical examiner, said there were nine confirmed cases of fentanyl-related deaths from January to May of this year, and another five related to carfentanil, an animal-tranquillizer used to sedate elephants and which is 100 times more potent than fentanyl.

It’s estimated as many as 2,000 people may die of opioid-related overdoses in Canada this year, and the numbers are growing exponentially.

Three people in Winnipeg died last Wednesday in what is suspected to be a fentanyl-related overdose. Their bodies were found at a home on Petriw Bay in Inkster Gardens in northwest Winnipeg.

An unidentified white powder and drug paraphernalia were also found, police said Wednesday, adding they believe the substance is fentanyl.

In October, two men were found dead in a car in the St. Johns neighbourhood in the North End, and fentanyl or carfentanil are suspected in their deaths but not yet confirmed.

Younes said fentanyl overdose deaths can be confirmed in Winnipeg testing, but some newer variations of opioid strains must be shipped out of province.

“We actually are capable of testing for the drug fentanyl in our lab in Manitoba and we have been for a number of years,” Younes said Friday.

Manitoba ships out carfentanil and other newer fentanyl-related drug in overdose deaths that can’t be properly identified here.

“Clandestine labs are making powdered forms and mixing it with other drugs and they’re tweaking the existing fentanyl formulas and coming up with new forms like carfentanil,” Younes said.

“I’m aware of six or seven of them (new forms of fentanyl-like drugs) in various jurisdictions in the United States. In Western Canada there’s also a new one called furanyl. As they keep popping up, we’ll have to keep coming up with new screening protocols to keep up with it.”

Younes also updated the cost of new laboratory equipment, saying the final price tag is about $1 million. He said he expects Manitoba to have the new equipment up and running in early 2017, after software with screening protocols are in place.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca