Vancouver teen fighting for his life after suspected fentayl overdose

Police say fentanyl is suspected in the overdose deaths of two people in the Vancouver area over the long weekend.

The 17-year-old boy and a 16-year-old friend both lost consciousness in Vancouver’s Shelley Park Saturday night, apparently after taking fake Oxycontins known as “fake 80s”, according to police.

Fentanyl is roughly 50 to 100 times more toxic than morphine and is sometimes mixed with other recreational drugs – with or without users’ knowledge. The teens likely expected the pills contained a drug called fake Oxycontin.

They were rushed to BC Children’s Hospital, where the younger boy awoke and began to recover.

The B.C. Coroners Service confirmed the presence of fentanyl, in combination with other drugs, in that case.

It’s yet another incident in a recent spate of overdoses linked to the drug, which police say is often mixed with recreational street drugs because it’s cheap and accessible. North Vancouver parents of a two-year-old overdosed and died from fentanyl last month.

In February, the BCCDC, RCMP and Vancouver police launched a wider public awareness campaign intended to educate users about fentanyl-related overdoses and recommend prevention strategies. 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.

As well, they advise learning about naloxone (Narcan), a medication that can reverse an overdose.