Fentanyl Opioid, The Drug That Killed Prince, Leaves Nine Dead In 24 Hours In Vancouver

The painkiller fentanyl opioid was strong enough to kill Prince earlier this year, and now it has left nine people dead from overdoses in just 24 hours in the city of Vancouver.

The BBC reported that 2,000 people are estimated to have died in Canada in 2015 due to drug abuse, and those are just the people that we know about. However, to have nine people die in just one night, and in just one city, shows the total devastation that this drug is causing, as Mayor Gregor Robertson can attest to.

“It’s hard to see any silver lining right now when we haven’t hit rock bottom.”

Robertson has spoken highly of the harm reduction services in the city, like drug consumption rooms which were first established in 2003, but also said that other options and ideas are desperately needed. With regard to Vancouver losing nine people in 24 hours because of fentanyl, Police Chief Adam Palmer suggested that it’s highly unlikely the city would have so many deaths at once from anything else.

“Can you imagine nine people dying from another cause in one day in our city?”

The Telegraph describes how tens of millions of dollars have been poured into public health emergency responses, but with no great effect.

On average, Vancouver normally sees 15 overdoses each month through fentanyl, with police looking closely at 160 other fatalities. Sadly, the deaths have been so many that even coroners have stated that their morgues have “reached capacity.”

A great majority of Vancouver’s fentanyl related deaths have occurred in the Eastside neighborhood, which is located downtown. Here, there is said to be a fairly open drug market coupled with intense poverty, which is a deadly combination. The city council of Vancouver even gave the go-ahead to a 0.5 percent increase in property taxes this week in order to obtain more funding to stop this avalanche of drug overdoses.

‘Overdose deaths involving #fentanyl fill Vancouver morgues to capacity’ https://t.co/DToouky3sc Depressing #vanpoli / #bcpoli.

— travis lupick (@tlupick) December 7, 2016

As nine drug-related deaths in 24 hours in Vancouver or anywhere else is not normally an everyday occurrence, and people might be wondering what the fentanyl opioid drug is. Fentanyl is an extreme potent painkiller that is prescribed in cases of extreme and chronic pain and is used when ordinary painkillers no longer work.

As it is an opioid, fentanyl mimics endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, and these stifle messages of pain that the brain sends. However, fentanyl can have exceedingly strong side effects. It also doesn’t take much of this synthetic drug to kill a person. In fact, just two milligrams of fentanyl in pure form is more than enough to kill an adult. Two milligrams isn’t much, either. That is the size of just four single grains of salt. When compared with other drugs, fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine.

Despite Vancouver’s deaths of nine people in 24 hours due to fentanyl, it isn’t just Canada that is having a major problem with the drug. The United States has also seen a huge surge in overdoses from the drug, including Prince’s death in April. In fact, CNN reports that there has been a 200 percent increase in the number of opioid overdoses since the year 2000. In the year 2014 alone, 5,500 people died as a result of synthetic opioid overdoses, with most of those being due to fentanyl.

If you look at the overdose deaths for 2013, you will see that there was an 80 percent increase in just one year alone. In 2015, the DEA stated that “drug incidents and overdoses related to fentanyl are occurring at an alarming rate.” And seizures of fentanyl have more than tripled over the years, with the DEA reporting that in 2013 there were 942 fentanyl seizures. Compare that with 3,344 in 2014.

In California this year, fentanyl was “passed off” as the drug Norco and sold widely. Over just 10 days, these drugs resulted in the deaths of 10 people and caused 48 overdoses. Heroin dealers are also cutting the drug with fentanyl.

So while it is a massive tragedy for Vancouver to lose 9 people in 24 hours, it is worthwhile remembering that fentanyl is a drug that has fast spiraled out of control and is affecting people everywhere.

[Featured Image by Drew Angerer/Getty Images]