A new type of opioid has been detected in street drugs in Toronto, causing increasing concerns that it could lead to more overdoses.
The drug is called cychlorphine and was first detected in the City’s unregulated drug supply about six weeks ago.
According to Karen McDonald with Toronto’s Drug Checking Service, the designer opioid has now turned up in several more samples collected from the downtown core and the city’s west end.
“It is a synthetic opioid that was developed to relieve pain but was never clinically approved for market.”
Initially, we found it on September 12 in a sample that was submitted to our program as a Percocet, but then just last week, we found it in three other samples; one that was submitted as oxycodone, one as a Percocet and one as hydromorphone,” explained McDonald. “It’s incredibly concerning when we detect a new drug especially because the drugs are becoming more novel and there is less information about them.”
Since 2019, the organization has been teaming up with community agencies and safe consumption sites to offer clients free laboratory drug screening. The testing also helps track what is flowing on the streets.
“We are generating a ton of data on the drug supply. We bring all of that data all together and as quickly as possible, educate the community on what it is that is circulating and what anticipated risks might be,” shared McDonald.
But McDonald says the service is now facing challenges with the Ford government de-funding harm reduction to directly focus on treatment and recovery.
The province banned supervised consumption sites from operating within 200 metres of a school or daycare on April 1. Most sites agreed to transition to the province’s new abstinence-based model – homelessness and addiction recovery treatment, or HART, hubs.
She said because supervised consumption sites are closing, they are taking in fewer samples.
“When the sites closed, we observed a 40 per cent reduction in samples we are collecting … It just means less information about what is circulating and how to potentially protect people from harm and death.”
At this point, it’s unknown how powerful cychlorphine is or the effects it could have on individuals, but McDonald warns Toronto’s drug supply is increasingly contaminated and unpredictable.
“There are more drugs presenting that we just don’t know what their effects may be. They are not approved for human use and so the risks are incredibly high.”
The drug-checking service recently expanded to Peterborough and Kingston. Due to support from Health Canada, over the next two years, the service could be available in all of Ontario’s 29 public health units.
