Health officials warn of crack laced with fentanyl in Hamilton

Public health officials say crack laced with fentanyl, known as "takeover" or "dirty fentanyl" has shown up in Hamilton. They posted an alert to the city's recently launched opioid monitoring and surveillance website.

"We often learn of new drugs or trend in the community anecdotally through our network of service partners," said Aisling Higgins, spokeswoman for public health."This morning information about a new drug came to our attention."

The city's public health officials have been notified of reports of the drug called "takeover" or "dirty fentanyl,"which causes "an immediate and dangerous loss of consciousness."

The city received a "word of mouth" alert about the drug's presence, and has not received any reports of overdoses or deaths being linked to it, Higgins said.

According to the alert, the drug came from Toronto and "is becoming widespread in Hamilton."

Public health officials are in touch with frequent drug users through a variety of means, including syringe exchanges, so they are trying to get the word out to clients and others who might be at risk. But they are also sharing information with other agencies like police, hospitals and paramedics, and with the public.

The city has posted information about what to do if someone you know shows signs of an overdose:

Hamilton paramedics rushed three people to hospital for "suspected" fentanyl overdoses this weekend but it was unclear whether any deaths could be attributed to the drug.Thereis noreal-time tracking of overdose deaths in Ontario, with the time lag stretching out for months or even more than a year.

But the city's opioidmonitoring website was also updated Wednesday with new numbers on the scope of the problem.

Paramedics responded to 30 opioid-related calls between Jan. 10 and the end of February.

The city's most recent numbers also show an uptick in emergency room visits, 56, for overdoses or drug misuse last week. This includes overdoses of drugs other than opioids.