Heroin on city streets is mostly fentanyl, drug testing reveals

More than half of all drugs broughtto a free testing service last monthtested positive for either fentanyl or carfentanil results the program's director finds"alarming."

Staff at the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre (SHCHC) use aportable mass spectrometer a machine thatcan fit atop a desk to scan trace amounts of drugs before clients use them.The $160,000 machine can accurately detectpotentially deadly chemicals within seconds.

Users can test their drugs for freeat the centre.

• Drug testing technology may prevent overdose deaths, advocates hope
• New supervised injection site already eyeing expansion

In July, the centre's supervised injection sitetested 16 samples of what users believed to be heroinand all of them contained at least some fentanyl. Five were entirely fentanyl, containing no heroin at all.

The agency also tested drugsdescribed as cocaine and methamphetamine and found fentanylin some of those samples.

"I think that we're seeing an escalation of the overdose crisis," said Rob Boyd, director of harm reduction services at SHCHC.

Rob Boyd on the relationship between heroin and fentanyl

6 years ago

Duration 0:35

Rob Boyd of the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre breaks down the relationship between street-level heroin and the number of opioid overdoses.

'Good advertising'

Boyd said he hopes that by posting the results of monthly testing, front-line health workers and health centre clientswill be forced to confront overdose risks.

He said the results should encourage more people to have their drugs screened.

"It's going to hopefully raise their concern a bit more about wanting to make sure that they get their drugs tested before they use them," Boyd said.

While fentanyl is most often found in otherdepressant drugs, Boyd said he was concerned to find out one sample of cocaine tested positive.

"People who are smoking crack cocaine,they're not thinking that they're at risk of an opioid overdose," said Boyd.

He said anyone using any kind of drugrecreationally, should take precautions. That meansnot usingthem alone and havingnaloxone kits available.

Student testing

The person doing much of the testing is a 19-year-old Carleton University undergraduate chemistry student,WonduGebeyehu.

The teen said his unusual entry into pharmaceuticals has been an eye-opening experience.

"It's been shocking to see how frequently these dangerous opiates have been put in these drugs," he said.

Gebeyehuspeaks with users as he tests their drugs and said fentanylseems to be normalized a situation he struggles to understand.

"A lot of times the presence offentanylwon't necessarily stop someone from being willing to use," he said.

When a drug is found to be laced with fentanyl, Gebeyehu said some simply accept the findings with a shrug. Others are shocked, and angry, to find their long-time dealer has sold them a potentially lethal drug.

A few have found the results of his tests so sobering thatthey have asked for a referral to rehabilitation programs or met with a doctor about starting methadone treatment.