W-18: deadly street drug 100 times stronger than fentanyl

On the heels of hundreds of overdose deaths related to fentanyl, authorities are nowwarning the public about a new and extremely lethal drug that's hit the streets in Western Canada.

W-18 is asynthetic opioid 10,000more potent than morphineand 100 times more potent than fentanyl.

Late last month, police in Calgary put out a warning after tests found W-18 in threepills seized in a drug bust.

'There's more out there'

"I can guarantee youthere's got to be more out there," said Sgt. Jason Walker. "We just haven't seen it yet."

Dr. Evan Wood, Vancouver Coastal Healthdirector for addiction services,says the fact that justthree pills containingW-18 werediscoveredis "interesting."

"It's not in a drug dealer's interesttobe killing everyone who is buying these drugs,"Woodtold CBC News."The danger ismakingsomething so potent that a small difference in the mass or volume is the difference between being toxic or producing the desired effect in users."

"If someone is making thesecounterfeitpills in a basement,and a small amount spills over or is improperly measured, that can be the difference," he said.

Wood likens the W-18situation to how opium smoking transformed into the heroin trade as amore concentrated formof the drug was developed to allow for easier smuggling across international borders.

"It's exactly the same narrative that we're having today." he said.

Minuscule margin of error

Unlike heroin, however, W-18 isn'tderived from a plant and can be producedin a basement at apotency so high that the margin for error in making apill with the desired amount of drug versus a deadly amount is microscopic,requiring thekind of quality controlnot usually found in illicit drug operations.

"ThisW-18, it seems to be crossing over thethresholdto where it would beundesirableto makers inclandestinelaboratories because you would be dealing with something that is so minuscule in mass that it would have to be cut hundreds of times in volume withanother substance as the substrate." he said.

"You'd need very sophisticated measures to be ableto producea street drug that didn't just kill people that were using it," he said.

"I think that's what's being seen with fentanyl.People are slipping up and making it just too potent."