Image Credit: Interior Health

By Jill Sperling

DRUG ALERT

Tainted Kamloops drug supply carries health and withdrawal risks

Jan 11, 2021 | 4:18 PM

KAMLOOPS — A tainted drug supply is circulating in Kamloops.

Four separate samples of drugs have been found to contain dangerous substances, including fentanyl. These results prompted Interior Health to issue four drug alerts late last week. The drugs were tested at ASK Wellness.

“This is the first time we’ve had this number of alerts come in within such a short time frame,” said Kile McKenna, an operational technician and factotum with ASK Wellness. “It’s difficult to say how tainted the drug supply is.”

All four drugs vary in appearance but were sold as ‘Down’.

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“Down is actually a slang term,” McKenna said. “In the past it referred almost exclusively to heroin, but these days actual heroin is becoming more and more rare to see and typically when it is seen there’s a very small proportion of it and the majority of the active substance is fentanyl and so the term down has kind of shifted to apply to any kind of opiate drug.”

While fentanyl was found in each sample, of greater concern to ASK Wellness is the presence of benzodiazepines, which are becoming more common in B.C.

“Some of the major concerns with the benzodiazepines is they have similar depressant properties to opioids.” McKenna said. “So they’ll actually slow respiration, causing shallower breath or breathing to stop entirely and when they’re combined with an opioid those effects can definitely be amplified.”

Benzodiazepines are also extremely addictive and McKenna says people are becoming addicted to them without knowing what they are consuming.

“If the drug supply changes and they’re no longer there, they’ll start to go into a benzodiazepine withdrawal, which medically is of quite a bit of concern. It’s actually one of the types of withdrawal that can cause the most physical symptoms as well as just psychological and discomfort.”

People are encouraged to avoid using drugs alone and get a sample of their drugs checked at ASK Wellness on Tranquille Rd.

The Lifeguard app is also available for people who do not have a buddy system in place.

“Basically, the way it works is you enter in some information, where you are, what you’re consuming,” McKenna said. “That information doesn’t go anywhere as long as there’s no overdose. You set the app on your phone, you can consume the substance, and then there’s basically a little timer that’s set and it will come up and you can hit snooze on it to give yourself a couple more minutes.”

If a person is unable to respond to the alarm, their information is sent out to emergency responders.

The current drug alert will remain in effect until January 15.