Thirty-Six People Overdosed Within 48 Hours in Surrey, BC

A health centre in Surrey, British Columbia has issued an official public warning due to 30 people overdosing within a 48-hour span last weekend. Though BC has been a major epicentre of the opioid crisis both in recent and past years, many of the people who experienced these overdoses reported using a drug in a completely different category: crack cocaine.

As of July 17, Fraser Health, the centre that issued the warning, has updated its warning to reflect that "traces" of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl were found in some of the overdose cases. Though none of the overdoses were reported as fatal, two people were admitted to the hospital—and all of the 36 people who overdosed had to be treated with more than one naloxone dose. READ MORE: Ontario Becomes Third Canadian Province to Make Opiate Overdose Antidote Available Without Prescription "It is especially disturbing when we see such a large number of overdoses in a short period of time, and even more concerning when it requires significant amounts of naloxone to reverse them," Doctor Victoria Lee, chief medical health officer, said in the public warning. "Our message to people who use drugs is that there appears to be more lethal drug supply that is circulating." In response to the wave in overdoses, Surrey MP Sukh Dhaliwal has called for an emergency summit. Since Friday, July 15 and as of July 19, there have been 43 reported overdoses total. The warning also mentions that Fraser Health is concerned about a particular analogue of fentanyl that has been found in nearby Whatcom County, Washington, which is just south of BC below the US-Canadian border. Though this is far from the first time fentanyl or its analogues has been found in non-opioid recreational drugs, the number of overdoses within a short span of time in one area is an obvious cause for concern. But BC is not the only place where fentanyl has been found in other drugs. In Ontario, a province that restricts access to the life-saving opioid overdose antidote naloxone to those who have used opioids or have a friend or family member who has, fentanyl has been found in cocaine, meth, and a number of other substances. Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter.