'It's scary stuff': Deadly drug carfentanil now in Winnipeg

Winnipeg police have confirmed they seized the deadly street drug carfentanil from a city hotel room, where they found blotter tabs that lab tests confirmed contain the powerful opioid.

A 37-year-old Winnipeg man has been charged with numerous offences and remains in custody.

Earlier this month the police servicetactical team raided ahotel roomin the west end of the city and found 1,477 blotter tabs they suspected containedcarfentanil, which they sent for lab tests.

Deadly drug carfentanil is in Winnipeg, police confirm

8 years ago

Duration 1:28

Winnipeg police have confirmed they seized the deadly street drug carfentanil from a city hotel room, where they found blotter tabs that lab tests confirmed contain the powerful opioid.

The presence of carfentanil, asyntheticopioid that is100 times stronger thanthe highly addictivefentanyl, is frightening, police and health officials said.

Carfentanil, which looksmuch like table salt,wasoriginally designed to immobilize large animalssuch as moose and elephants. Adose as small as 20 micrograms would be fatal to humans, officials said. One microgram of the drug is smaller thana grain ofsalt, they said.

"It's scary stuff and we're concerned," said Deputy ChiefDanny Smyth.

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"The risk of overdose is incrediblyhigh," saidDr. Joss Reimer, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority's medical officer of health, adding the alert for firstresponders has been heightened.

"We're notifying our emergency rooms, our fire and paramedic services, that they need to be watching for this because of how toxic it is," she said. "We're worried that it's going to require higher doses ofNaloxone, which is the antidote to fentanyland what's in the kits that we give out to people who use opioids."

The amount offentanylhas been spikingin the city and the number offentanyl-relateddeaths hasincreased, Reimer said,citing thechief medical examiner, who is still finalizing thenumbers so a report can be made public.

Police said they are not awareof any deaths in Winnipeg related to carfentanil,but regardless,Smyth said it is important to think of overdoses and deaths as more than "faceless statistics."

These are real people in the community being harmed by drugs, he said, introducing Arlene Last-Kolb, whose son Jessie, 24, died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago.

• Fentanyl deaths of sons bring 2 moms together to work for change

"This recent bust of carfentanil will save many lives," Last-Kolb said, urgingdrug users to getNaloxone kits, whichcan be picked up at Street Connections at 496 Hargrave St., or purchased from any pharmacy without a prescription.

She also urged parents and school officials to invite police to visit schools and educate staff and students "that drugs are not what they used to be." They're farmore dangerous for kids who are experimenting.

"You never get over the loss of a child," she said.

Last-Kolb would like to see legislation enacted in Manitoba that offerslegalprotection to people who help others who areincapacitated.

Arlene Last-Kolb speaks out about son's fatal fentanyl overdose

8 years ago

Duration 2:42

Winnipeg police have confirmed the deadly street drug carfentanil is in the city

That would prevent people from being afraid to call for help if a friend overdoses, she said, explaining that the night her son overdosed, his friends focused on cleaning up and getting rid of evidence of drugs and money.

They then left the home and called for an ambulance from another location,Last-Kolb said, noting Jessiewas a one-minute drive from a hospital.

"My son could be alive today," she said. "They were more concerned about what was going to happen to them."

Users of carfentaniltake it intravenously or absorb it through the skin in a patch, or take it orally like a tablet.

Itis also mixed with other street drugs such as cocaine, said health officials, who addedthere's no way to safely determine a non-lethal amount of carfentanil.