KELOWNA — A Kelowna mother is opening up to warn other families about the risks of fentanyl.
Tyler Leinweber was 40 years old, an entrepreneur, a father of two and a heroin addict.
He had joined a 12-step recovery program, was attending meetings and connecting with family.
But on January 14, the day he died, text messages on his phone show that he was trying to connect with drug dealers.
“He found what he thought was heroin and did it and he died,” says Leinweber’s mother, Helen Jennens.
Jennens says she was shocked when she talked to the BC Coroner’s Service and was told her son had not died of a heroin overdose at all, but from a drug he wasn’t looking for — fentanyl.
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“I believe if you sell a product to somebody and say it’s one thing and it’s something else that’s lethal; that’s murder in my mind,” says Jennens.
According to the coroner’s report, Leinweber thought he had purchased heroin and was unaware of the presence of fentanyl.
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Fentanyl is one of the strongest opiate drugs on the market and because it can be obtained relatively cheaply, it’s turning up more and more in B.C. mixed in with other drugs.
That inadvertent use of fentanyl has led to a spike in its overdose related deaths in the province. According to the BC Coroner’s Service 146 people died of fentanyl-linked overdoses last year, up from 13 in 2012.
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