HIV Community Link warning public of possibly-laced heroin hitting the Hat
By JEREMY APPEL on April 2, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com
HIV Community Link is warning the public about a “bad batch” of heroin that’s going around the city, which could be laced with fentanyl and carfentanil based on its pink colour.
“We do bad batch alerts whenever we have information that there is a batch in the community that’s causing overdoses,” said executive director Leslie Hill.
She said these tips typically come from clients who had to use their naloxone kit to reverse an overdose when they return for a new one.
“We would then take a report from them about how they used their kit and what the circumstances were,” says Hill.
“Whenever we see a trend in overdoses, we would issue an alert if we had tangible information about the substance.”
HIV Community Link doesn’t have access to drug testing kits, so they just know if a batch of drugs is causing overdoses. They must speculate as to what’s in it that’s causing an overdose.
“That would be based on suspicion or on reports from other communities,” Hill said. “This substance that is bright pink in colour and burns purple has been found in multiple communities. When we hear about that, we would seek information from other communities.”
According to the alert sent out by Community Link, this batch is suspected of being the same as one that caused 44 overdoses in a single night in Vancouver.
Some of these overdoses required as many as 6-8 doses of naloxone for resuscitation, the alert says.
“When there’s a bad batch, it’s really important for people to know about it, especially people who are at risk of overdose,” said Hill.
“That said, we know that any street-based substance is not necessarily what you think it is and that carfentanil and fentanyl have been laced into all kinds of other substances, so it’s important to have that vigilance, regardless of whether there’s a bad batch alert in the community or not.”
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