Interior Health has confirmed the first two positive drug tests for carfentanil, a drug 100 times more potent than fentanyl. This means the drug has officially made its way into the region. The drug is so potent that Revelstoke pharmacist David Lafreniere, owner of People’s Drug Mart, said the naloxone kits available through public health likely wouldn’t be enough to stop an overdose because of the drug’s potency.
“If it’s carfentanil almost certainly a single dose isn’t going to save you,” said Lafreniere, who noted the drug is used to sedate very large animals such as elephants. “The people working with these animals, when they are using carfentanil they have four or five doses of naloxone with them in case they get poked with the needle. It’s that potent.”
Staff Sgt. Kurt Grabinsky with the Revelstoke RCMP said they are working together with a number of other agencies including fire, ambulance, Parks Canada and other frontline workers about the use of naloxone.
The RCMP has purchased almost 14,000 naloxone kits to issue to the regular officers who are on the street. “We each now carry a kit with two naloxone dispensers. They are a nasal dispenser so we can apply those either to the public or to another police officer if they are under the effects,” said Grabinsky. He noted that there have been two cases of police officers having encountered and been affected by fentynal in the RCMP southeast district.
“Now we are also seeing carfentanil,” said Grabinsky. “There are some serious concerns for both the well being of the public and the well being of the police officers.”
While there have been no reported overdoses of fentanyl or carfentanil in Revelstoke, that’s not to say the drugs haven’t made their way into the community. Interior Health only provides statistics when there have been more than five overdoses at the hospital in a community, and the health authority has confidentiality concerns about releasing information about low numbers in smaller demographic areas such as Revelstoke.
Even so, Interior Health recently released information that there was a positive carfentanil drug test in the Kootenay region, and a positive carfentanil urine test in the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap region. Revelstoke is part of the latter region.
“These recent findings confirm our suspicions and anecdotal reports that carfentanil is present in IH communities,” Dr. Trevor Corneil, chief medical officer with Interior Health said in a statement. “Carfentinal has also been detected in other parts of B.C. and may be responsible for the spike in overdose deaths seen at the end of 2016.”
Lafreniere said that up until recently testing wasn’t being done for carfentanil, as it wasn’t thought to be widely circulating like other opioids such as heroin or fentanyl,
“Now that it’s starting to circulate they are testing for it,” he said.
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