TORONTO — Yet another warning from Toronto Police about the drug Fentanyl, which can be found in patch or pill form and is responsible for hundreds of overdoses across the county.
Detective Sergeant Mike Richmond with 51 division admits the drug is especially common among users in his downtown neighbourhood.
“This particular area of the city unfortunately is known for substance abuse issues and Fentanyl is a large part of that,” Hamilton said.
This week, a large number of Fentanyl patches were stolen off the shelf of a pharmacy in the Church Street and Queen Street East area.
It’s attached to a pain clinic making it a prime target for dealers and users because it regularly stocks Fentanyl, which is a painkiller one hundred times more powerful than Morphine.
Detective Sergeant Richmond is calling for stronger security measures at pharmacies.
“I think people who own and operate pharmacies are acutely aware this particular drug and other pain reliever medications are a target for theft,” he adds.
Pharmacist Christine Morkos at Woodgreen, the pharmacy which was broken into this week, agrees.
“We’re gonna work on beefing that up a little bit if we need to hire a physical security guard, but it’s kind hard to monitor the place 24/7. There’s always a lot going on around here,” says Morkos.
Asked to describe the impact of the drug, Morkos says,”super super strong in layman’s terms. It’s basically for doctors a last resort treatment.”
She worries about the 20 boxes stolen from her pharmacy landing in the wrong hands. “For an opioide-naïve patient, it’s very dangerous. For children, it’s really dangerous.”
Comments