B.C. health ministry says drug users testing positive for opioid carfentanil
VICTORIA — B.C.’s Health Ministry has confirmed illicit drug users in Metro Vancouver are ingesting a deadly synthetic opioid typically used as an elephant tranquilizer.
The ministry says a small number of urine tests conducted over a two-week period at treatment facilities across Metro Vancouver tested positive for carfentanil.
It says one or two grains of the drug can be fatal and that it is 100 times more toxic than fentanyl, the drug at the root of the province’s overdose crisis.
The tests were done on 1,766 urine samples and showed 57 of those were positive for carfentanil.