Killer heroin and the rise of Fentanyl abuse

Drug users and front line workers say that Fentanyl, a potentially deadly drug that is a hundred times more powerful than heroin, is posing an increasing threat to addicts.

In just two days this week, more than 30 people overdosed at Vancouver's Insite safe injection site. Police have confirmed that it wasn't heroin that caused the overdoses, but Fentanyl.

"Fentanyl is a synthetic drug that is approximately 100 to 150 times more powerful than morphine and about 100 times more powerful than heroin. And when people take it, inject it, it is so potent that it will actually put them into a coma," said Dr. Peter Selby, Chief of the Addictions Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

The drug can be sold on its own, but it is also mixed with heroin or formed into pills and sold as counterfeit Oxycontin or Oxycodone.

Laura Shaver is a heroin user in Vancouver who works with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug users. She has taken heroin laced with Fentanyl and used the drug on its own.

"I nodded out. I think I slept for about 12 hours and I felt like I was still high when I got up," said Shaver to Brent Bambury, host of CBC Radio's Day 6.

Shaver says that for about six months now many addicts she knows have been worried about buying heroin and not realizing that it contains Fentanyl.

"There has been a lot of talk about Fentanyl being in the heroin that's responsible for the mass amount of ODs we're having," said Shaver.

Shaver says that despite the risks of a fatal overdose some users are drawn to the drug because the high lasts longer. She says she knows people who have used Fentanyl-laced heroin and overdosed, one fatally.

Knowing that there are deadly doses out there has prompted some users to resort to primitive detection methods.

"I was told that if your heroin is a browny colour that you are okay. But if your heroin is more of a white consistency then that could be possibly laced with Fentanyl," said Shaver.

Deadly doses are a problem in Vancouver's down-town east side and for drug-users across the country.

Dr. Matthew Young with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse says that he received an alert that the B.C. Coroners Service suspects that illicit Fentanyl use was involved in deaths of at least 13 people between January and the end of April 2014.

He also says that health officials in Montreal reported 17 drug related deaths in May and June. According to Young, heroin deaths have also spiked in Hamilton, toxic heroin alerts have been issued in Toronto, and Saskatoon police have reported two counterfeit Oxycontin related deaths. He says that all these cases aren't necessarily linked to Fentanyl, but that is the suspicion.

Dr. Peter Selby thinks that Fentanyl is making it on the street through a couple of routes. First, through pharmaceutical prescriptions that are being diverted into the black market. And second, through illegal manufacture.

"You also have the entire drug cartels who are making, what we would call 'cutting heroin', with home-made chemists' sort of grade Fentanyl made by some underground lab," said Selby.

Selby believes that some of this Fentanyl use is being prompted by the removal of Oxycontin from the market and its replacement with a formulation meant to discourage illegal use.

"I can't tell you based on any kind of data. What I can tell you anecdotally is it certainly has become the substitute," said Selby.

If you or someone you know needs help with addiction, visit the website for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health or find resources for help here.