Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Health has released another drug alert regarding medetomidine, a veterinary sedative not reactive to naloxone and increasingly found in opioids.
The drug is often sold as fentanyl and is approximately 20 times stronger.
Prairie Harm Reduction (PHR) says many users are unaware of the medetomidine in the drugs they buy, causing regular users of fentanyl who have not built up a tolerance to overdose.
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“These people end up being unsuspected victims of unregulated drug supply,” PHR paramedic Stacia Robinson said.
The last drug alert for medetomidine in the area was in November 2025.
Robinson says contaminants are common and dangerous, but drug users are responding to the alerts.
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“People get concerned and it encourages them to come get their drugs tested because they don’t want to end up in the same boat,” Robinson said.
This week, medetomidine-related poisonings in B.C. led to a new single-day record of 256 drug poisoning calls for paramedics there.
Medetomidine can cause a dangerously low heart rate, slowed breathing and changes to blood pressure and can result in prolonged sedation.
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