A test strips used to check for presence of illicit fentanyl in such drugs as heroin, crystal meth and cocaine in this undated handout images provided by Vancouver Coastal Health.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Vancouver Coastal Health
April 25, 2018 - 6:30 PM
Social service agencies in six Interior cities will be offering drug-testing strips for users.
It's an idea that's been widely talked about since B.C.'s overdose crisis became a public health emergency in April 2016, and now agencies in Kelowna, Kamloops, Penticton, Vernon, Nelson and Cranbrook will be making the strips available.
Dr. Silvina Mema with the Interior Health Authority says social agencies like ASK Wellness in Kamloops and Living Positive Resource Centre in Kelowna will provide drug-testing services as soon as the strips are delivered to them. Social agencies in Penticton and Vernon will also be offering the services.
Drug users can go in to those locations with their drugs and a worker will have a small sample tested to see if it's been tainted with fentanyl.
"There is some evidence that these strips may be reducing the risk of overdose," Mema says.
This project has already seen success at the Insite supervised consumption site in Vancouver, and Mema says overdose prevention sites and supervised consumption sites in Kamloops and Kelowna have already been using the strips.
"There is a demand for it," Mema says. "(Users) want to know if their supply was tainted with fentanyl.”
The province is providing a small amount of funding toward the project, Mema says. She adds that she's not yet comfortable with the idea of take-home testing strips considering the risks associated with them.
Taking drugs to get sampled by a service worker doesn't guarantee a user's safety. If the test shows a negative result for fentanyl, it doesn't necessarily mean there's no fentanyl elsewhere in the drug.
"You may have a negative result but that doesn’t mean your drug is not contaminated," Mema says.
She compares contaminated drugs to chocolate chip cookies. Some cookies will have a lot of chocolate chips and other cookies will have little to none, the same way some drugs will be completely contaminated by fentanyl and others won't be.
"Using drugs is illegal, sure it is, but people do it anyway," Mema says. "If they sit down in front of a worker… they can explain, and then the person doesn’t leave with a false reassurance that they don’t have fentanyl (in their drugs)."
As for why drug-testing strips are moving out of the mobile supervised consumption sites and into the community, Mema says a focus is being put on recreational drug users who use stimulants like cocaine, who wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable going to a supervised consumption site to consume drugs.
"I always like to say that I would prefer that they don’t use drugs, this is not trying to promote drug use," Mema says. "But we have to come from the perspective that people are going to use, anyway and if they're going to use anyway, how can we make it safe for them?"
Mema hopes if all goes well, the service can be expanded to other, smaller communities in the Interior.
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