Justice, Health Leaders huddle in Calgary in search for solutions

Fentanyl crisis: Justice, health leaders huddle in Calgary in search for solutions

Yolande Cole
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Published on: October 16, 2016 | Last Updated: October 17, 2016 5:36 PM MST

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It’s not enough for police to crack down on drug dealers to combat Alberta’s fentanyl scourge, it will take the efforts of health and other sectors to combat the crisis, says the provincial justice minister.
“Opioid addiction is not new in Alberta, but fentanyl is particularly deadly so, in a way, it’s sort of brought the problem to the forefront, which means that we need to work expeditiously to address that,” Kathleen Ganley said Monday.
“It’s certainly the case that this needs to be addressed on the enforcement side, but it also needs to be addressed on other fronts, so specifically health — ensuring that people have access to counselling, treatment beds, opioid replacement therapies.”
The justice minister made the comments as more than 300 delegates from law enforcement, corrections, health services and other fields turned their attention to the potent drug during the first day of a conference in Calgary.
As part of the conference at police headquarters, attendees are getting a chance to tour a lab demonstration of how fentanyl powder is processed into tablets.

A minuscule amount of sugar is shown to illustrate what would be a fatal dose of fentanyl on a human during a fentanyl processing demonstration on Monday, October 17 at the Calgary Police Service headquarters. Lyle Aspinall / Postmedia

Among the items on display at the demonstration Monday morning was a small vial containing a few grains of sugar. The minuscule amount would be enough fentanyl to constitute a lethal dose, RCMP Cpl. Eric Boechler said.
“Two milligrams is the generally accepted lethal dose amount of pure fentanyl,” Boechler said.
“That is such an incredibly small amount that in that vial was a representation with sugar of just a couple grains to show how incredibly small two mg actually is. In the realm of somebody who doesn’t have access to that, a business card weighs about a gram, so about one 500th the weight of a business card by way of volume is the approximate lethal dose of something like fentanyl.”
Boechler also stressed that in the illicit drug market, there are “no quality controls.”
Even if drug traffickers get the mixtures right, it’s still possible to produce product that would be fatal to people on the street, he noted. In what are known as “hot spots,” some pills have a higher concentration of fentanyl compared with others. For drug users, there is no way to tell the difference in potency of each pill.
“Hot spots are tablets that have more than two mg of fentanyl,” said Sgt. Martin Schiavetta with the Calgary Police Service.
“Some of the tablets that we’ve actually been seizing in Calgary have ranged from 4.6 to 5.6, which is very high, obviously.”
Schiavetta noted there have been cases as recent as this past weekend in which law enforcement members have attended an accidental overdose from coming into contact with fentanyl. Ensuring the safety of first responders is another aim of this week’s conference, he said.
Mike Ellis, justice critic and Conservative MLA for Calgary-West, called Monday for Alberta to declare a public health crisis and to create an all-party advisory committee on opioid abuse.
Ganley said declaring a public health emergency gives the government powers to address a contagious outbreak.
“I think the challenge with a public health emergency is that it gives the government significant powers … to do things that might be necessary if you have a significant outbreak of a contagious disease, which would not be helpful in this particular instance,” she said.
After wrapping up in Calgary Tuesday, a two-day conference will also be held in Edmonton on Thursday and Friday.

RCMP Cpl. Eric Boechler (R) and Calgary Police Service S. Sgt. Martin Schiavetta demonstrate a low-end pill presser during a fentanyl processing demonstration at the Calgary Police Service headquarters. Lyle Aspinall / Postmedia