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By Dylana Kneeshaw

Drug Alert

In wake of Kamloops teenager’s death, officials warn of toxic drug supply

Jun 24, 2020 | 5:20 PM

KAMLOOPS — The Kamloops-Thompson School District is working to bring emotional support to students and staff after a local student lost her life. Various social media postings say the teen died last Friday after a suspected overdose.

Vessy Mochikas, S.D. 73’s director of instruction for elementary education and learning services, says the district was recently made aware of a student fatality.

“We were informed of a possible unconfirmed incident involving one of our students, which is always troubling.”

The B.C. Coroners Service confirmed that it is investigating a death on Friday, June 19 involving a teenager in Kamloops. However, the cause of death has not been confirmed, and to protect privacy, information that would identify the teen has not been released.

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“Obviously first of all, our condolences go out to the family and friends and anyone impacted by this tragic incident. As a parent, I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening,” notes Mochikas, “so our thoughts definitely go out to those impacted.”

According to Mochikas, the district and every school within it has a critical incident team to provide counselling support to any students who need help, particularly the peers of the student who passed away.

“We really are relying on parents to keep an eye on their students, and if they feel their student needs additional support, please connect with their principal,” she stresses. “We have school district counsellors who are ready willing, and want to help those students get the support they need.”

While Interior Health states in an email to CFJC Today that it cannot speak to a specific case, the health authority does warn anyone who uses any kind of drug that there is a highly toxic supply in the community. Recently, a drug alert was issued for powder cocaine containing fentanyl and Phenacetin in the Kamloops area.

ASK Wellness drug test machine operation technician, Kile McKenna, says a contaminated supply is not a new problem, but the rate of deadly results has worsened in the last few months.

“There are higher concentrations of fentanyl in the samples that we’ve been seeing at drug checking,” he explains, “and that is consistent with the information we’re seeing from B.C. Coroners Service, where they’re noting that there’s been more fentanyl-linked overdose deaths with what they classify as extreme concentrations of fentanyl.”

ASK Wellness has a free testing centre set up to check if substances contain fentanyl, and McKenna notes take-home test strips are also available.

“We’ve got Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrometer (FTIR) drug-checking available. 2:00 p.m to 6:00 p.m. Wednesdays is the best time, at 433 Tranquille,” he says. “But 8:30 to 4:30, people can drop off samples, and there are other times during the week when we run them as well. During those hours as well, people can come in and pick up fentanyl test strips.”

McKenna says he’s aware many people may want to take the word of their dealer, but testing is particularly important right now.

“The drug supply is in such a big flux, so just because of their previous experience, it’s not a good indicator at this time for future risk.”

According to McKenna, another concern is the amount of fatal overdoses that occur when people use alone. He says stigma is a large driver for this, and for parents concerned about their teens at this time, conversations about drug use and how dangerous the supply is right now can be helpful.

“Really, having the conversation with your kids and being able to reach out and ask the questions in a stigma-free manner is really the key to get parents to engage and have an open dialogue with their kids so that, really, they can help protect them from that place of knowing,” he explains, “rather than having tragic outcomes because people are trying to hide their behaviour because they’re worried about stigmatized responses.”

Given the high rate of overdoses seen last month in B.C., people who are considering taking a substance are asked to check for fentanyl or other contaminants before use, and to avoid using alone.

“May was the highest overdose month on record province-wide, and within each of the health regions,” McKenna says. “June, from what I’ve seen, things aren’t looking like there’s been a substantial improvement in that situation.”