The London Police Service issued an alert to the public on Wednesday after two drug samples seized in the city tested positive for a drug one hundred times more powerful than fentanyl and 10,000 times more powerful than morphine.
Test results from Health Canada confirmed carfentanil was found in two separate seizures dating back to August 25 and September 11.
“To date in 2017, there have also been 23 confirmed seizures of fentanyl, a 460 per cent increase from the five confirmed fentanyl cases in 2016,” said London Police Chief John Pare.
The arrival of carfentanil in London is described as a “turning point” for the worse by the Middlesex-London Health Unit.
“Even for first-time users, it’s like playing Russian roulette,” said medical officer of health Dr. Chris Mackie.
“We’ve been anticipating something like this and have been expanding the distribution of naloxone as well as having public consultations about supervised consumption facilities.”
Mackie noted that it only takes an amount of carfentanil powder equivalent to a grain of salt to be lethal through inhalation, ingestion, or absorption through the skin.
He’s urging users to always have naloxone, the overdose-reversing drug, on them and to never use alone. Naloxone can be picked up for free from the health unit or local pharmacies.
The warning from police and the health unit comes as public consultation on the potential for supervised consumption sites ramps up in the city, with nine public participation meetings scheduled before the end of November in addition to an online survey available until mid-December.
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