Pubdate: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc. Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.theprovince.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: John Colebourn Page: 9 RED ALERT OVER TOXIC PINK HEROIN Fentanyl-Laced: Drug Users Warned After 16 Overdoses Reported Over the Weekend The new menace on the mean streets of Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside is pink in colour and packs a deadly punch. Pink-coloured heroin laced with fentanyl is being blamed for 16 overdoses in Vancouver over the weekend, and health officials and police are bracing for further emergency responses to a problem they feel is reaching near-epidemic proportions. At the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) on Monday, president Hugh Lampkin said they are training more people who live and work with drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside in how to use Naloxone (Narcan) when a person has an overdose of a potent pharmaceutical opioid such as fentanyl. All of the 16 overdoses occurred in a 24-hour period, most happened in the Downtown Eastside and all appear to be related to fentanyl being put in the pink heroin. Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine and warnings have been going out for months that street drugs are being laced with the potent substance that is believed to be made in places like Southeast Asia, Mexico and South America. "It seems to be a widespread problem right now," said Lampkin. Lampkin believes much of the heroin circulating in the Downtown Eastside has fentanyl added. "The chances are high," he said. "It is in the 80-per-cent range that there is probably fentanyl in it," he said. But Lampkin also points out fentanyl is also in most of the other street drugs available, even pot. "It is in almost everything," he said. Lampkin believes the fentanyl is added by the mid-level dealers before it moves into the Downtown Eastside and is sold on the streets. "Fentanyl is way cheaper and 100 times stronger than heroin," he said. "Your body is not accustomed to that much." Vancouver Coastal Health's Dr. Mark Lysyshyn said the organization continues to put out the warnings that fentanyl is showing up in all the illicit drugs that can be bought on the street. "That is the problem with the illicit drug market, there is no quality control," Lysyshyn said. "We know there is clearly a supply of fentanyl in this region." Police in the Metro Vancouver area feel the fentanyl problem is in every community and are working to get the message out to the public. In Abbotsford, Const. Ian MacDonald said fentanyl is a big concern and they have had a number of deaths recently from the laced drugs. "It is a recurring theme for us - fentanyl can be put in anything. "I think the alarm was sounded a couple of years ago," MacDonald added of their first concerns about fentanyl. And he said drug dealers are putting fentanyl in their product for a bigger profit. "That is the problem, fentanyl is cheap and it can have a dramatic effect." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom