Fentanyl checking expanding to more VCH sites

The pilot project at Insite offering a free fentanyl checking service is expanding to offer more locations for clients. People can now check their drugs for fentanyl at any of Vancouver’s four overdose prevention sites and Powell Street Getaway supervised injection service, in addition to Insite. If you have clients in the Vancouver area who use illicit substances please let them know about this life-saving service.

“When we launched the checking service at Insite last year we were hoping it would persuade people to use more safely,” says Dr. Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer, who is leading the project. “This is exactly what we’re seeing at Insite, so now we can arm even more people with information about their risks, so they will make safer choices.”

At Insite clients who checked prior to consumption and got a positive result were 10 times more likely to reduce their dose and clients‎ who reduced their dose were 25% less likely to overdose.

“We’d like to see more people check prior to their use so that we can determine whether this could be effective for people who don’t use our health services,” says Dr. Patricia Daly, Chief Medical Health Officer and the Vice President, Public Health. “With the majority of overdose victims dying alone, if proven to work, drug checking could save lives.”

Checking results 

The drug-checking service has been running at Insite for the last year (July 7, 2016 to July 14, 2017). So far more than 1,400 checks have been done. Overall, 80% of drugs checked were positive for fentanyl, including 84% of heroin samples, and 65% of non-opiate drugs such as crystal meth, ecstasy/MDMA, and cocaine. The results are being posted regularly at the sites for clients to view.

How does the test work?

Clients use a test strip, a product originally developed to check urine, at their booth. The client dilutes their substance with a few drops of water and a positive or negative for fentanyl is revealed within seconds. This method checks for fentanyl, and has recently been discovered effective to also detect several other fentanyl analogues including carfentanil.

More info

There are approximately 1000 visits to the overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites every day.

For more information about overdoses, and where the checking services are located, visit www.vch.ca/overdose.