Deadly Recreation

"It's the new wave of concern in drug enforcement."
"Two milligrams is a fatal dose. A paper-clip weighs about 1,000 milligrams. We've found fentanyl that's ten thousand times more powerful than morphine."
"Anyone can go on eBay and for $6,300 buy a XD9 pill press, shipping included. That press can pump out 18,000 pills an hour."
We're not making as big a dent as we'd like to [law enforcement; in the production and trafficking of fentanyl]."
RCMP Cpl. Eric Boechler, clandestine lab unit, RCMP, British Columbia

"Though a pill press is used in the manufacturing of drug products, this equipment does not have a diagnostic or therapeutic effect on the patient, and as such, does not fit the definition of 'drug' or a 'device', under the Food and Drugs Act."
"Therefore, such equipment is not regulated as a drug or medical device under the Food and Drugs Act."
Eric Morrissette, spokesman, Canada Department of Health

Fentanyl is a highly addictive opiate, considered 100 times more powerful than morphine. The dramatic rise in fentanyl deaths in Alberta, has doctors calling for more treatment spaces. (The Canadian Press/HO/Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams )

A new threat has arisen to take the lives of the unwary drug user, with the introduction of a newer, more powerful drug on the illicit drug scene, a prescription drug now in circulation on Vancouver's infamous Downtown Eastside. And rapidly spreading its threat radiating outward to the rest of Canada. Drug users sometimes have the erroneous impression that they're buying OxyContin or heroin, but what they're ending up with is fentanyl, a killer drug.

In the last two years in the province of British Columbia alone 150 deaths have resulted from the use of fentanyl, a drug that was laboratory created in 1960 for use as a pain reliever. In many of the overdose deaths that have bee investigated those using the drug in what might be considered a 'normal' dose with the use of other drugs have turned out to be deadly, because the drug being used was contaminated with fentanyl.

The culprit in this situation appears to be the regulation of the manufacturing means of fentanyl, the tablet press. Dealers use fentanyl powder, most of it smuggled into Canada from sources in Asia, to turn it into capsule form taking advantage of the fact that Canada hasn't regulated who can buy a tablet press. Alberta law enforcment Insp.Darcy Strang explains that most pill pressing for North America comes from Canada, shipped south to markets beyond its borders.

Because it is so relatively easy to set up manufacturing in Canada through the facilitating pill production, foreign nationals work in the country alongside resident Canadians. American laws stipulate that transactions concerning tableting machines must be reported: "It helps us keep track of what's going on out there", explains Barbara Carreno of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "We know it's illicit" if someone buys a pill press without reporting; each link in the drug manufacturing and distribution process is monitored in the U.S.

"If our clandestine lab team is doing a bust, almost inevitably, a pill press is found", stated Det.Steve Watts of the Toronto police drug squad. A chemist no longer working in illegal drug labs, who has since become a police informant, explains that some among his former colleagues are working on versions of fentanyl that exceed the already dangerous product in circulation, to come up with a fentanyl 40,000 times more powerful than morphine.

"If you have the gear and the chemicals and the skills, then it's a facile process", he says of the powder largely being smuggled in from China. The ease with which fentanyl can be disguised as other drugs is what creates the problem since Fentanyl is routinely mixed into tablets and powders to be sold as fake OxyContin, heroin and cocaine or crystal meth. The chemist insists that up to 90 percent of street heroin is comprised of fentanyl. And since fentanyl is so powerful it must be mixed or buffered with another ingredient, usually caffeine tablets.

Members of Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) discovered $50,000 worth of cocaine and fentanyl, as well as a handgun and body armour, when they executed search warrants in Calgary on May 1. (ALERT)

"It's easy to make a mistake and not add enough filler or have a hot spot", says RCMP Cpl. Boechler. And it's those hot spots, when a few grains of fentanyl clump together, that creates that fatal overdose. And this is when those pills resemble that old chicken-game of Russian roulette. Because the production and distribution of these drugs is so profitable, it's not going to go away anytime soon. Dealers are able to buy a kilo of fentanyl for $12,000 where the same amount of heroin would cost $130,000, and one kilo of fentanyl can produce a million pills, each selling for $40 on the street.

In 2013, Alberta police confiscated less than 300 pills containing fentanyl. Two years later close to 20,000 pills have been seized by police, and meanwhile the death toll steadily mounts. "There is definitely pharmaceutical and synthetic fentanyl in Toronto We're still dealing with micrograms ... B.C. is dealing with kilos", said Det. Watts. Overdose deaths in Ontario relating to fentanyl use is growing, however.

B.C. hands out overdose kits to drug users and Alberta is doing the same in ramping up its struggle to crack down on the drug. In the United States there is speculation that Mexican cartels are involved in the trade. Law enforcement response teams in Alberta usually deal with organized crime groups, but in recognizing just how serious the situation with fentanyl is, an exception has been made in extending their response to deal with the policing of fentanyl.


Packets containing fentanyl patches.