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A group of future pharmacists wants to reduce the number of fentanyl-related overdoses in Saskatoon.
University of Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy student Shayan Shirazi is a co-founder of Minimizing the Opiate Crisis. Along with five of his classmates, he wants to make free kits available in the city that could test street drugs for the presence of the deadly opiate.
He said he and his colleagues were inspired to take action in light of a surge in deaths right across North America.
“Twelve Canadians will die today because of opiate-related overdoses. Forty-six Americans will die today,” Shirazi said.
Each kit would contain a test tube, a buffer solution and a testing strip. Users would put the solution in the test tube, then mix in the powdered or liquid drugs they plan to use.
From there, they’d add the testing strip; one line appearing on the strip indicates fentanyl was detected, while two lines indicate the strip couldn’t detect if the drug was present.
“Because it’s not 100-per-cent accurate, we don’t want to mislead anyone by saying, ‘Absolutely, there is no fentanyl in the drug.’ We can only say that there is no fentanyl detected,” Shirazi said.
He said the idea is to give people the best information possible and to potentially buy users more time to seek treatment for addiction.
“People are going to do drugs regardless of what we tell them in certain circumstances. What we want to do is give them opportunities to help themselves,” he said, noting those requesting kits would be counselled on the risks and also provided information on Narcan, a drug that can counteract the effects of a fentanyl overdose.
Shirazi said his group is in talks with a chain of pharmacies to distribute the fentanyl testing kits and hopes to have them available by September.
Each kit comes at a cost of about $5 from the manufacturer. Shirazi said he hoped the group would be able to get government grants to buy the kits. He said if that doesn’t work out, various pharmacies and community groups have committed to pay the roughly $1,000 projected cost of the first year’s worth of kits.
“The annual cost of opioid-related overdose and hospitalizations is in the range of $130 million in Saskatchewan alone, so even if these fentanyl testing strips prevent one overdose or even have a small impact, they’re going to be saving money,” he said.
Shirazi said Minimizing the Opiate Crisis would be communicating more about its plans on social media and encouraged those interested to follow them on Twitter.