Pubdate: Sun, 12 Jun 2016
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Page: 30
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.theprovince.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Geordon Omand

EXPERTS QUESTION W-18 CLAIMS

Health Canada Data on Dangers of Drug May Have Come From Preliminary 
Research in '84

Experts are questioning widely circulated Health Canada claims that 
the drug W-18 is 100 times more powerful than fentanyl, or that the 
new arrival to the illicit-drug scene is even technically an opioid.

Dr. David Juurlink, head of pharmacology and toxicology at the 
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said that while W-18 
could very well be dangerous, more research is needed before 
conclusions can be drawn about its chemical behaviour and potency.

"The main thing we know is that we don't know very much," Juurlink 
said in an interview. "It's clearly a chemical and it does something, 
but what exactly it does is not clear."

What is known is that W-18 is a synthetic compound created and 
patented at a University of Alberta laboratory as a potential pain 
reliever in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was one of 32 
chemicals produced in the so-called W-series, none of which were ever 
produced commercially.

As of June 1, Canada made it illegal to produce, possess, import, 
export or traffic W-18 after the substance was identified during 
several illicit drug seizures.

Researchers looking at the chemical structure suggest the compound 
doesn't bind to opioid receptors in the body the way fentanyl or 
other opioids do, Juurlink said.

The inventor of W-18 also disputes the claims being made about the 
chemical. Retired chemist Ed Knaus said that while the other 
compounds in the W-series behaved in some ways like opioids, that 
same behaviour wasn't displayed in W-18.

"It's always possible (that it's an opioid) because we didn't prove 
the mechanism of action," Knaus said.

He added that W-18 isn't necessarily 10,000 times more toxic or 
dangerous than morphine.

"The problem here is that the press and everybody extrapolates (and) 
people start to equate numbers.

"They say that this thing is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 
fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine, so automatically 
it's 10,000. Well, we never tested fentanyl in our case."

Knaus said he was "saddened and disturbed" that after so many years, 
someone would exploit W-18 for use as an illicit drug.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control has since backtracked on 
information it released in January describing W-18 as an opioid 100 
times more toxic than fentanyl.

"That information was what was available to us back at the end of 
last year, and there has since been a lot more interest and some more 
supposition," said Jane Buxton, head of the centre's harm reduction office.

Health Canada did not respond to a request for comment, but it 
appears information included in its fact sheet comes from preliminary 
research in the original nine-page patent application, dated Aug. 28, 1984.

That same research information was circulated by the Centre for 
Disease Control, said the organization's head, Mark Tyndall.

The study used mice to test the pain-relieving activity of all 
W-series compounds and the results were compared to several other 
drugs, including aspirin and morphine.

The research found it takes 10,000 times more morphine than W-18 to 
produce the same analgesic effect.

That doesn't make the drug 10,000 times more dangerous than morphine, 
said Bryan Roth, a pharmacologist at the University of North Carolina.

"All this means is that if you're a mouse ... you could be given a 
dose of W-18 that's 10,000 times less than a dose of morphine and you 
would have basically an equivalent effect," said Roth, who is 
conducting research on W-18.

"It may be a dangerous drug, but we don't know that. There's no data out there."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom