Officer Shaun McKennedy’s first overdose call comes
in at 6.39pm. He turns the sirens on and rushes over to 245 Laurel
street, a midsize apartment building. There’s an abandoned baby carriage
in the front yard. A man wearing a Bride of Chucky shirt pee...
Canada is seeing a surge in Fentanyl OD deaths, so much so, that they have called a state of emergency
as the death toll rises due to the OD cases involving this drug.
Officials in Canada scramble in an attempt to address the rising OD
deaths from Fentanyl, which is a drug 50 times more potent than heroin
and up to 100 times more potent than morphine. The drug knows no race,
age or social class when taking lives.
AOL video screen grab
According to Med India on
April 16, Fentanyl accounted for five percent of the overdose deaths in
2012 and in 2015 that jumped to 31 percent in Canada. So far this year
the number is holding last year’s stats, but expected to rise by the end
of the year if nothing is put in place to stop these overdoses.
TJC News
reports that Canadian officials worry that "at the current rate in
2016, without additional steps to combat overdoses, B.C. could see 600
to 800 overdose deaths this year." One of the most critical pieces for
saving lives right now is the "real time" information on where these
overdose deaths are occurring. This would allow the government to set up
interventions in the most needed areas.
In an ideal world getting the people to stop taking drugs
would be the goal, but you need to pick your battles and that battle is
to save lives right now with putting preventative measures in place so
people who are taking these drugs don’t die of an overdose. They begin
by collecting the “real-time” data of these overdose deaths to find the
areas they should target with prevention.
So far the drug Naloxone, which is known mostly under the
brand name Narcan in the U.S., is being doled out to police, first
responders, pharmacists and the drug users and their families in Canada
to instantly reverse the effect of an opiate overdose. Training has been
provided to these people on the proper use of the drug that can bring
someone back from a drug overdose at a miraculous rate.
The U.S. has seen many lives saved with the first responders
having the drug on hand in police cars as well as ambulances. Canada is
also looking into opening safe places
in the areas riddled with these overdoses where drug users can go and
safely administer the drug with a medical professional in attendance.
This is a controversial idea, but again, you have to pick
your battles and Canada’s immediate battle is to save lives. The drug
users are not going to stop using, so the next best thing is to monitor
their intake and offer education, which is apparently the mindset around
these safe places proposed.
While fentanyl is prescription drug that is prescribed by
doctors for chronic pain, there is so much more of this drug being use
than those doled out with legal scripts. Drugs are coming in from other
countries and being sold on the streets, like the version of fentanyl
being produced in China and the drug is smuggled into the U.S. through
Mexico, U.S. investigators believe.
With Canada a neighbor of the U.S., if drugs are getting
past the U.S. borders than the same could be happening at the Canadian
border. While fighting to keep the drug out of the country and off the
street is an on-going war, keeping those who are doing these drugs safe
is an immediate goal in Canada.
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