This baggie of drugs was found by an 11-month-old at a Kamloops park.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED / RCMP
July 06, 2020 - 2:27 PM
An 11-month-old was playing at a Kamloops park this weekend when they came upon a small bag of what police believe to be fentanyl.
The child's mother managed to get the drugs from the child in the nick of time and contacted the Mounties on July 5 at 9:52 a.m. who went to McDonald Park at 262 King Street.
"Kamloops, like many other communities in Canada, is still in the grips of an opioid crisis," Staff Sgt Simon Pillay of the RCMP Kamloops said in a press release about the incident.
Pillay added the opioid crisis has been considered a public health emergency since April 2016, and noted that means issues like found needles and drugs are something that all parents must be mindful of while in public settings.
"Thankfully in the case at hand an attentive parent caught her child with these found drugs before any harm could be done. It serves as a good reminder to speak with your kids about the reality of hazards that could be found in any public spaces," Pillay said.
The drugs were purple and tucked into a small ziplock-style bag with a pot leaves on the outside. Const. Gary Gray of the RCMP Kamloops Targeted Enforcement Unit and court acknowledged expert in fentanyl said it's common fare in Kamloops.
"Investigators have been seeing fentanyl in Kamloops since 2014. Since then, fentanyl has become the drug of choice (for both traffickers and users) in Kamloops over heroin because of its potency," Gray said in the press release.
"Drug traffickers acquire fentanyl fairly cheap and mix it with a buffing agent such as caffeine to be sold on the street. Some drug traffickers add colouring to their product to make it a signature product. The most common colour that Kamloops RCMP have been seeing is purple fentanyl."
If you have information pertaining to local drug trafficking activities, please contact the RCMP at 250-828-3000.
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