5 overdoses in one week in Moncton set off alarm bells

Five overdoses in one week have a Moncton clinic concerned a more potent opioid drug may be circulating in the region.

Ensemble Moncton, which hosts an overdose prevention site, saw two overdose patients Thursday and Friday, said Debby Warren, the executive director.

Two other overdoses were reported at the emergency warming station at the former fire department and another happened out in the community the same week, she said.

None of the five people known to have overdosed last week died. Naloxone, a drug used to reverse the effects of opioids, was administered quickly enough, Warren said.

"It was just fortunate that there was Naloxone and people around those folks who knew how to use it."

Warren believes these overdoses were caused by a synthetic opioid commonly distributed in the Moncton area called Shady 8.

The drug, also known as Isotonitazene, is sold on the illicit market as white pills and is 500 times more potent than morphine, according to the World Health Organization.

Warren said itcan be very resistant to Naloxone,requiringseveral doses.

"It would appear that there may be a new batch circulating," said Warren.

Before last week, the clinic hadn't witnessed any overdoses since it opened in November of last year.

Warren said she can't know for sure if the drug being used was Shady 8 because patients must volunteer to be tested.

She said the patients involved said they used a drug that looked similar to the Shady 8 they'd consumed before,but it had a much different effect on them.

"So they take what they think they would normally take, but they go into overdose," said Warren.

She urgedanyone using this drug to take extra precautions, to never use it alone and to make sure to have Naloxone on hand.

"People are dying, quite literally, and they will die if the Naloxone is not used to reverse the overdose," she said.

Warren said Ensemble Moncton provides Naloxone kits to the community.

"It can be all the difference between life and death," she said. "It's minutes really."

Ambulance New Brunswick and Codiac RCMP could not provide any details about the overdoses.