Opinion: War on fentanyl is worth fighting

So Canada is going to have a fentanyl czar. My first mental image is of a Walter White character controlling the flow of drugs to the street rather than someone who is going to stop the flow. Fentanyl has such a scary reputation. Everyone “knows” it is a million times more hazardous than heroin and can kill at a single touch.

What we know isn’t always reality. Fentanyl doesn’t kill by touch. It took years to develop a fentanyl patch because it doesn’t absorb through the skin easily. Now, if you inhale, inject, or ingest, you’ll drop. Plus, it’s only 50 times more potent than heroin.

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I had lots of time to think about fentanyl while sitting in the ER waiting room listening to my adopted son scream for my wife. That day had started so normal.
We were running errands in the car when my phone rang. It was a doctor from the ER asking me questions about our son. They wanted us to come to the hospital immediately.

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My wife made a quick lane change and drove like she had a police escort. The doctor kept asking me questions, “did my son have allergies, had he ever had a
seizure, was he on any medications?” When we came in the ER doors, a chaplain was waiting on us. I knew that couldn’t be a good sign.

We were ushered into a safe room. There was a doctor and a nurse in addition to the chaplain who followed us in. They asked the same questions about if he had
allergies or seizures. All very quiet and tentative. My wife finally said, “our son is adopted, and he isn’t a choir boy. Please tell us what’s happened.”

He’d had an overdose. He and another boy and girl had gotten a sack of drugs that we have heard various stories over the years about its origin. It wasn’t just laced with fentanyl, but with Carfentanil, 10,000 times more potent than morphine or 100 times more so than fentanyl. He and the other boy had snorted their share. The girl was going to inject, so by the time she had her part ready, our son and friend had collapsed.

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She went for help, and they were across the street from a non-profit with a street ministry. Their workers responded with naloxone. It took four vials each. Even with that, his heart stopped three times in the ambulance. If he had nine lives, he blew through most of them. He inhaled some vomit, causing pneumonia. When he came to in the ER, he started screaming my wife’s name. We went to the back. He had all the expected tubes and monitors. He received last rites. My wife
sat next to him and held his hand until he fell asleep. He survived. He’s been clean for years now.

The experience taught us a few things. It showed us how hospitals are quite experienced at dealing with parents who might not know their kids use drugs until
they end up in the ER. That’s if they end up there. Our son was in a place where the antidote was available, and the people willing and able to administer it were close by.

I doubt much fentanyl gets smuggled out of Canada, contrary to what Mr. Trump believes, but if nothing else, his braying has put it into the spotlight. Some people say we’ve lost the war on drugs. I don’t care which side of the border our new fentanyl czar fights the war on; it’s a war worth fighting.

Austin Mardon, PhD, has the Order of Canada and is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta. He was recognized by Pope Francis with the Order of St. Sylvester.

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