Powerful opioid carfentanil found for the first time in Guelph
Posted Aug 18, 2017 04:33:40 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Guelph has recorded its first confirmed seizure of carfentanil in that city.
The opioid, believed to be 100 times more toxic than fentanyl, was found in a substance believed to be heroin, seized during the arrest of two men as part of a drug trafficking investigation in June.
Testing by Health Canada confirmed the suspected heroin was laced with both fentanyl and carfentanil.
“We have known as a police service its presence in our country, and as it makes its way primarily from Western Canada into Ontario,” says Constable Buzz Dean with Guelph Police. “It was only a matter of time before it reached Guelph city.”
Dean says, although this is the city’s first ever confirmed instance of carfentanyl, the drug could actually be more rampant than we think.
“We want to make sure that the public’s aware of it. Not just for the drug users themselves, but also the larger public” he says, “to know that this is something that’s just not an academic conversation anymore. It’s certainly in our community right now.”
Guelph Police are reminding drug users and their families how deadly fentanyl and carfentanil are, and to always have naloxone on hand in order to treat an opioid overdose. Naloxone is available for free at several pharmacies in Guelph.
