Peter sits on his front porch reflecting on his high school days.
“I was just like your average kid. I mostly just played football and went to school,” he says.
It was the beginning of Grade 11. Peter was starting out at a new school with a new group of friends.
“I guess we had bad chemistry because none of them had done any drugs besides pot and neither had I,” says Peter. “And then once we got together we just… it kind of happened.”
Peter and his new friends started taking oxycontin – a potent prescription painkiller well known for its powerful addictive properties. One day, the supply of Oxycontin dried up. But their dealer had something new on the offer.
“We were trying to get Oxys actually at the time, me and my friend,” says Peter. “Then our drug dealer was like oh no, I have these patches.”
The patch they were sold contains a drug called Fentanyl.
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“We were like oh, this is much better than doing oxys, this is probably not even as bad for you,” says Peter.
Just like oxycontin, Fentanyl is an addictive opiate. But fentanyl is a hundred times more potent than morphine – a single patch on the skin kills pain for 72 hours.
Peter and his friends would smoke the patches or put them on their gums – giving them the 3-day dose all at once.
“Your body starts to tingle. It feels almost like a massage, your body feels really nice,” he says. “It shuts your body down too. That’s what it’s designed to do. Slowly shut your body down.”
Word spread and soon there was a growing group of users at St. Mark High School. What began as an occasional high became day-to-day life.
One morning, Peter woke up in a cold sweat.
“I didn’t know I was going on, I thought I was just sick,” He says. “And then I just felt sick all day.”
Peter’s friends were sick as well.
“Come bedtime the next day, when we didn’t have any we couldn’t sleep,” he says. “Yeah, we were withdrawing.”
That’s when Peter realized he couldn’t go without the patch. The addiction took over their lives. And when the money ran out, they’d do anything they could to keep from coming down.
“We’d beg, borrow or steal. I did some things that I can never take back and feel really bad for,” says Peter. “I robbed my best friend’s house, that’s how bad it was.”
“We’d trade TVs, we’d trade gold, that’s what I mean. We’d do anything and everything. And it got to the point where like they’d offer us so little for a full TV and you’re hurting, so you take it.”
On August 4, 2012 the Manotick community was shocked when Peter’s cousin Tyler Campbell died of a fentanyl overdose.
“I feel completely like it’s my fault like he’s passed away,” says Peter. “He would just never have been involved.”
Watch 16×9 this Friday for the story of this small community recovering from a deadly addiction.
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