Toxic drug found in N.L. has medical professionals warning it will lead to more deaths

The presence of a highly toxic synthetic opioid in Newfoundland and Labrador has drug safety advocates sounding the alarm over the deadly substance.

Earlier this week, the RCMP announced a large-scale drug bust in Labrador had resulted in the seizure of nitazene, a drug that's 25 times more potent than fentanyl.

Memorial University pharmacy professor John Weber says in the past five years, nitazene has been making its way across Canada. He isn't surprised to see it being trafficked in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"I think it was just a matter of time," he told CBC.

Weber said the potency of an individual pill is unpredictable, which means people don't know how strong the drug they're ingesting is, which can lead to overdosing.

'Fake pills'

Weber said there is no way for someone to identify a pill that contains nitazene by sight, and it's often passed off as another drug.

"It's pretty much disguised as, say, something like oxycodone pills. It may be disguised as something like fentanyl," said Weber.

Drug testing is an option to determine what a pill actually contains, but detecting nitazene requires sophisticated equipment that isn't available in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Dr. Alexander Caudarella, a family doctor who specializes in addiction and the CEO of the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, said he's seeing the re-emergence of "fake pills," in which drugs are disguised as other substances.

"The criminal enterprise has gotten really, really good at imitating pills. So things can look really legitimate but be super dangerous and, like I said, unpredictable," Caudarella told CBC.

Caudarella added nitazene are often cut with fentanyl, which makes them even more dangerous.

"I think the big message from this is — it's just a very unpredictable and, unfortunately as a result, very deadly recipe. That the more we see of these, unfortunately, what follows tends to be more overdoses and more deaths."

Caudarella anticipates it will become part of the overarching worry when it comes to the drug crisis that's happening across the country.

"Unfortunately what has happened is in the rest of the country it's just become a more, kind of constant part of things. It may come and go or the amounts may come and go a little bit, but it seems to just kind of be present," he said.

"This is the big problem about the era we're facing right now. Drugs have never been cheaper to make. They've never been more potent and I don't think we're going back, unfortunately, out of the synthetic drug era."

Fighting for solutions

Both Caudarella and Weber suggest anyone ingesting drugs should have access to a naloxone kit, which can reverse the effects of an overdose, giving the individual enough time to seek emergency care.

Still, Weber said how effective naloxone kits are in combating nitazene isn't known.

"The thing is the naloxone lasts ... typically like 30 minutes to 90 minutes. The nitazene... we don't have enough data to know exactly how long they last," said Weber.

He would also like to see nitazene testing strips get to the province to be part of the harm reduction toolkit.

"SWAP does a great job distributing safe fentanyl strips. It'd be great if, you know, organizations like that could get their hands on these nitazene strips, because I think you're going to see more and more of these substances appearing in the province."

Caudarella believes the drug crisis can be addressed and that investments need to be made in prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and sustained long-term recovery and support.

"It's about not waiting for the floor to fall out under someone. How do we catch people early when they need a little bit more help, a little bit more support and care?"

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