The powerful opioid carfentanil is the latest drug behind an alarming number of overdose deaths in Alberta.
Its 100 times more powerful than fentanyl, which itself is 100 times stronger than morphine. The drug is meant to be used as an anesthetic for large animals like elephants, but as a street drug, it’s causing far more damage than good.
15 Albertans have overdosed and died from carfentanil in the last three months, and the province’s top doctor is worried than some people who are taking it don’t even realize it.
All but one of the 15 deaths occurred between September and the end of November. Five happened in Calgary with the rest happening in Edmonton and northern Alberta.
Nearly all of the carfentanil victims are between the ages of 20 and 40 years old, and authorities want people to know that both cities and rural areas are being hit with overdoses, as even a trace amount of the drug can be deadly.
The Alberta Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is one of only a very small number of toxicology laboratories in Canada that is able to positively identify carfentanil in human blood.
