Fentanyl has been described by the United Nations as one of the world’s deadliest drugs.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime today released its annual World Drug Report in Vienna, which estimated that more than 100,000 people in the US died of a fentanyl overdose just last year.
Now experts here are asking for better prevention, before anyone in New Zealand dies from the drug.
This is only the second time the drug has been found illegally in New Zealand.
Five men and two women between the ages of 31 and 71 were admitted to Wairarapa Hospital, with another case suspected to have gone directly to a Wellington hospital, the DHB said.
However, the drug information website High Alert said yesterday that 12 people were admitted to hospital due to suspected fentanyl overdose over the weekend, all in the Wairarapa region.
Detective Inspector Blair Macdonald, of the National Drug Intelligence Bureau, said two people took the drug after buying what they thought was cocaine.
He said the bureau is still trying to find the supplier and how the drug entered the country.
“We are very, very aware that this drug will cause harm because it is highly active in such a small dose,” he said.
“Really just a few grains of salt is an active dose.”
The organization Know Your Stuff for Reducing Drug Damage said fentanyl was first identified in New Zealand in 2018, when it was sold as heroin.
Wendy Allison, managing director, said its reappearance was not unexpected, and in the four years since, New Zealand has legalized drug control and developed a national high-risk drug warning system.
However, she said it was about the synthetic drug now being sold as cocaine because people are more likely to snore it, which can lead to faster overdose and possible deaths.
“We can not rule out the possibility that it is more widespread and [that] we will see further matters, ”she said.
“Even if we are not in this situation, fentanyl has now arrived on our shores and based on what we have seen overseas, it is likely that we will continue to see cases like this emerge.”
The needle exchange program said its Masterton branch would hold a bounce clinic for drug control on Thursday after the spate of overdoses.
They also ordered more fentanyl home test strips and Naloxone – a drug used to reverse opioid overdose.
They have had a string of queries since the news of the weekend’s overdose appeared.
Philippa Jones, national operations manager, said the incident showed the need for more permanent drug control services in places like Wairarapa.
“We have 20 outlets across the country and quite a few of those outlets are in those more provincial areas,” she said.
“We are a licensed drug controller, so we have all the capacity to really do that and to have these facilities available, but we just have no funding to make it really happen.”
Drug Foundation executive director Sarah Helm said this overdose could have been avoided if New Zealand’s 1975 drug laws had been updated.
She said the laws are based on the US system, which clearly does not work.
“One of the reasons we have this situation at all is because people are buying drugs on a black market, they are being criminalized …,” she said.
“We need to update our drug laws so we can use a health-based approach.”
Helm said New Zealand also needs better resources for harm reduction and prevention initiatives, including funding to make Naloxone more accessible.
Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson said he was not aware of any concerns about the availability and supply of Naloxone.
Concerns over possibility of more overdose
Fentanyl arriving in New Zealand was a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, Glenn Dobson, chief operating officer of the drug detection agency, told Checkpoint.
He said in its pure form a few grains were enough to kill someone.
There was a real concern that there could be more fentanyl-related overdose, as it was unclear how widespread the drug could be.
Dobson believed it would be unusual for it to be found in only one region of the country.
Asked how supplies would have reached Aotearoa, he said: “There are illegal laboratories in China and Mexico that manufacture it. DEA intel suggests that India is another country that is coming up with illegal laboratories. From there, the drugs usually come through Canada, the USA or Mexico, and go down to Australasia. “
I reminded people that abstinence was the best safety mechanism.