Rumours of a fentanyl overdose were sparked after a 14-year-old boy was rushed to Nanaimo hospital at 12:35 a.m. Thursday from Parksville.
While The NEWS received phone calls alleging fentanyl may have been ingested, Oceanside RCMP Cpl. Jesse Foreman said there was nothing to suggest fentanyl was involved in the incident.
Foreman said upon arrival police found the boy vomiting in an ambulance at Parksville Community Park.
“He relayed to paramedics he was drinking with friends,” Foreman told The NEWS. “There was no mention of any kind of drug… that could be friends covering up for friends… but without a toxicology report, if he didn’t say anything about it, we wouldn’t know.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Foreman said the boy was in stable condition.
Foreman said despite a spike in media attention fentanyl has garnered throughout the country, it doesn’t seem to be a problem in Parksville Qualicum Beach.
“That’s not to say for a second it doesn’t exist,” he said. “But we’ve had no reports or seizures.”
According to Island Health medical health officer Dr. Paul Hasselback, since 2013 there have been 141 drug overdose deaths on Vancouver Island — 42 of those have been related to fentanyl.
Hasselback said the drug can take on many forms and can be inhaled, ingested or injected.
“Nowadays we can assume any product available on the street might contain fentanyl and should be treated as such,” he said.
“Six to 12 months ago, people purchasing drugs on the street were surprised fentanyl was being added. Now some people may be purchasing (drugs) because fentanyl is being added… There’s been a change and it’s all been fairly recent.”
However, Hasselback noted “the street market is no different than any other market — it’s based on supply and demand.”
Fentanyl is a legal drug in Canada. “It is a narcotic, it is a controlled substance,” said Hasselback. “It’s been around for a long time… What we have found in the last couple of years is it’s been making its way into the street-level distributed drug market and it doesn’t appear to be medically-prescribed fentanyl. It’s being produced somewhere else but it’s still fentanyl, it has the same effects, benefits and problems.”
Medically, fentanyl is often used by cancer patients to control pain as it’s a longer-acting narcotic, a characteristic that Hasselback said makes the drug appealing to some users who may be seeking a long-lasting high.
“The other thing is it takes a much smaller volume of fentanyl compared to other drugs,” he said. “For example, if you’re taking one pill, or say one gram, you only should be taking 0.1 gram of fentanyl.”
He said if you don’t adjust your dosage to the potency you’re more likely to end up with an overdose and “that’s where we are seeing problems. It’s a matter of appropriate dosage.”
But there are messages the medical community is trying to convey to users.
“Similar to drinking and driving, it’s a good idea to have a designated person available, don’t use alone and it’s preferable to start with small amounts rather than assuming a product you’ve purchased will give you the same responses as in the past,” advised Hasselback.
He said Island Health recognizes the importance of addressing fentanyl-related overdoses and is working to make Naloxone more readily available for users.
Hasselback explained Naloxone is “like an EpiPen for kids with allergies” but used with narcotics to reverse the effects.
Last week, the B.C. Coroners Service (BCCS) released statistics stating British Columbia had 54 fentanyl-related fatalities in the five-month period from January to May of this year. Moreover, there have been at least 12 deaths within the past month where fentanyl has been detected.
According to the BCCS, post mortem toxicology testing has shown that in the vast majority of these deaths, fentanyl was part of a multi-drug overdose, most often also involving heroin, cocaine and/or methamphetamines, and often in combination with alcohol and/or prescription medications.
