Parents, students attend Delta fentanyl forum

DELTA (NEWS 1130) — “If this seems like a scare tactic, that’s because we’re scared.”

The message comes from a panel including representatives from Delta Police, the school district and Fraser Health specialists at a forum on fentanyl Wednesday evening.

Over 200 people including parents and high school students gathered at South Delta Secondary to hear the latest developments in the response to BC’s opioid crisis.

A second forum goes Thursday at North Delta Secondary from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Delta Police Sgt. Dave Vaughan-Smith says traces of the synthetic opioid have been identified in everything from heroin, to oxycodone to cocaine. He says despite rumours, there have been no cases of street level marijuana testing positive for fentanyl.

Vaughan-Smith says sloppy illicit drug makers, negligent mixing, and cross contamination may be spreading fentanyl into a variety of street drugs.

Dr. Arlene King, executive medical director with Fraser Health says 2016 saw an average of two deaths per day in the first portion of the year. Many of the victims are males 19-years-old or younger.

There are 39 naloxone sites currently operating but King says they are working to expand that number.

1589 naloxone kits (an opiate antidote) have been dispensed in 2016.

Delta Police Chief Neil Dubord says BC chiefs have been talking about a ban on pill presses that can be used to imitate the look of prescription pills.

High school students attending the forum:

“I haven’t really heard [fentanyl] being talked about in the hallways or anything like that.”

“It’s talked about but in our case it’s more of a joking manner, just around friends, but it is definitely a topic.”

“It’s huge thing the community. It’s happening everywhere. I don’t hear a lot of talk about it at our school, but everyone knows ‘stay away from this’ and that so there is not much conversation from being a kid and listening to other kids.”

“I realized there were something like nine overdoses in a night but I didn’t know how many actual deaths there were.”

“The only new thing I learned was the naloxone. That was a new thing which I found very interesting.”

Parents attending the forum:

“He’s in grade 10 and he’s exposed to things I’m not aware of. The naloxone, I didn’t know about that, so that was good.”

“It completely freaks me out. On Friday there is a service in our church for a girl in our church who overdosed.”

“We came out tonight because it’s prevalent in our neighbourhood. Our son goes to this school, with these overdoses in the very recent past and our son is 13 and just starting high school so it’s a big concern for us. We need to know so we can talk to him about it.”

“Just the type of drugs that fentanyl is in in the moment, they we’re saying it’s not in marijuana currently but cocaine, heroin, and some of the other drugs, we can educate them as much as we want until we’re blue in the face, but we can only hope they listen and understand”

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