Heroin on city streets is mostly fentanyl, drug testing reveals
More than half of all street drugs tested at an Ottawa supervised injection site contained fentanyl
More than half of all drugs brought to a free testing service last month tested positive for either fentanyl or carfentanil — results the program's director finds "alarming."
Staff at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (SHCHC) use a portable mass spectrometer — a machine that can fit atop a desk — to scan trace amounts of drugs before clients use them. The $160,000 machine can accurately detect potentially deadly chemicals within seconds.
Users can test their drugs for free at the centre.
- Drug testing technology may prevent overdose deaths, advocates hope
- New supervised injection site already eyeing expansion
In July, the centre's supervised injection site tested 16 samples of what users believed to be heroin and all of them contained at least some fentanyl. Five were entirely fentanyl, containing no heroin at all.
The agency also tested drugs described as cocaine and methamphetamine and found fentanyl in some of those samples.
"I think that we're seeing an escalation of the overdose crisis," said Rob Boyd, director of harm reduction services at SHCHC.
'Good advertising'
Boyd said he hopes that by posting the results of monthly testing, front-line health workers and health centre clients will be forced to confront overdose risks.
He said the results should encourage more people to have their drugs screened.
"It's going to hopefully raise their concern a bit more about wanting to make sure that they get their drugs tested before they use them," Boyd said.
While fentanyl is most often found in other depressant drugs, Boyd said he was concerned to find out one sample of cocaine tested positive.
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DrugChecking?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DrugChecking</a> results for the month of July <a href="https://twitter.com/SandyHillCHC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SandyHillCHC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DUALOttawa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DUALOttawa</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/odpreventionott?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@odpreventionott</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/OttawaPolice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@OttawaPolice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ottawahealth?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ottawahealth</a> <a href="https://t.co/fD5jlMmboQ">pic.twitter.com/fD5jlMmboQ</a>
—@rboyd6"People who are smoking crack cocaine, they're not thinking that they're at risk of an opioid overdose," said Boyd.
He said anyone using any kind of drug recreationally, should take precautions. That means not using them alone and having naloxone kits available.
Student testing
The person doing much of the testing is a 19-year-old Carleton University undergraduate chemistry student, Wondu Gebeyehu.
The teen said his unusual entry into pharmaceuticals has been an eye-opening experience.
"It's been shocking to see how frequently these dangerous opiates have been put in these drugs," he said.
Gebeyehu speaks with users as he tests their drugs and said fentanyl seems to be normalized — a situation he struggles to understand.
"A lot of times the presence of fentanyl won't necessarily stop someone from being willing to use," he said.
When a drug is found to be laced with fentanyl, Gebeyehu said some simply accept the findings with a shrug. Others are shocked, and angry, to find their long-time dealer has sold them a potentially lethal drug.
A few have found the results of his tests so sobering that they have asked for a referral to rehabilitation programs or met with a doctor about starting methadone treatment.