Health Canada announced Wednesday that regulations on six chemicals used in the creation of fentanyl, the deadly substance creeping across Canada, are now in effect.
The regulations are part of Health Canada’s Opioid Action Plan, which Health Minister Jane Philpott announced in June.
READ MORE: Fentanyl deaths on the rise in Ontario as drug creeps eastward from western Canada
“It’s very clear that there’s a serious and growing public health crisis, in fact there are deaths virtually every single day as a result of opioid overdoses,” Philpott said on Parliament Hill Wednesday.
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“We’ve introduced a large number of measures and there’s many more to come yet, but one of them is to support law enforcement officials to be able to intervene in some of the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl. And that’s what the regulatory amendments were today.”
The new regulations come into effect immediately.
RCMP announced last week that it had reached an agreement with China to try to stop the flow of fentanyl into Canada.
British Columbia declared a public health emergency in April but the death toll keeps rising, with 622 fatalities counted between January and October, about 60 per cent of them involving fentanyl.
*with files from the Canadian Press
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