Burnaby high school student identified as 17-year-old who died of fentanyl

The teens likely expected the pills contained a drug called fake Oxycontin.

Fentanyl-laced heroin has been linked to dozens of deaths in Metro Vancouver in recent years. Geoff Harder said in a media release.

The Vancouver area has seen four fentanyl-related deaths in the last two weeks.

The 17-year-old was found unconscious in a Vancouver park Saturday night.

Hardy and Amelia Leighton, both in their 30s, were found dead July 20, 2015, leaving behind their two-year-old son Magnus.

Police and health authorities say that, in most cases, the victims are not hard-core drug addicts but teens and adults who use drugs only occasionally. That can lead to varying levels of fentanyl from batch to batch, and even pills produced in the same batch may have widely varying levels of fentanyl, with some producing only a mild effect and others containing lethal doses. “The 16-year-old woke and is recovering, but the 17-year-old is in grave condition on life support”.

After two teenaged boys were rushed to hospital from suspected fentanyl overdoses, Vancity Buzz has learned one of them has died.

That follows another incident in North Vancouver on Friday, where a 31-year-old man died after a family member found him in medical distress. The cheap synthetic opiod often added in drug labs to heroin or Oxycontin to make it more potent and fast-acting, according to police.

Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more toxic than morphine. At least 55 people have died from the drug so far in 2015, reported CTV News in August.

“If you use street drugs, you should take precautions”.

The medication naloxone is available in B.C.as take home kits, via prescription for those at risk of an overdose, to reduce severe harms of opioid overdose.