Pubdate: Thu, 06 Oct 2016
Source: Vancouver 24hours (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Vancouver 24 hrs.
Contact: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/letters
Website: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3837
Author: Glen Schaefer
Page: 4

TRUSTEE URGES SCHOOL ANTI-OVERDOSE KITS

A Maple Ridge school trustee is proposing that anti-overdose kits be
made available at all B.C. secondary schools as part of the battle
against the often-lethal use of the drug fentanyl.

Susan Carr, vice-chairwoman of the Maple Ridge board, said her
awareness of the drug 's dangers go back three years, when she had a
family member become addicted to the drug - the individual is in
recovery now.

"It was a world I never even imagined," Carr said Wednesday as she
prepared to host a school forum that night on the drug 's dangers.
"You find yourself overwhelmed with the situation, and terrified that
while you're trying to find help, your family member is going to die
right in front of you."

Carr is preparing a motion to bring to her board's Oct. 19 meeting,
that the provincial ministries of health and education prepare a
protocol on fentanyl preparedness that would include kits with the
anti-overdose drug naloxone at all B.C. high schools.

"I've lived it, I get it, that's why I'm passionate about getting the
message out there," Carr said before heading to the evening forum at
Westview Secondary School.

Police and health authorities were scheduled to give presentations on
the narcotic drug, which has come into widespread use with traces
found in marijuana and cocaine.

A rash of fentanyl-related overdoses that put nine people in hospital
over one night in Delta prompted school and police authorities in
September to host two such forums at schools in that community. Those
incidents were believed to involve fentanyl-laced cocaine. Carr's
proposal is the latest volley in what is becoming a provincewide fight
to curb the drug 's spread. The B.C. Coroners Service reports that
fentanyl was involved in 60.1 per cent of illicit drug deaths so far
this year, as compared with 30.1 per cent of drug fatalities last
year. In addition, the number of illicit drug deaths provincewide rose
to 488 deaths to the end of August this year, as compared with 302 in
the same period last year.

Carr said fentanyl, which can kill with small doses, dwarfs past
drug-use issues in schools and communities.

"It's just blown up - fentanyl is being sprayed in pot, it's in
cocaine," Carr said, adding that school first-aid staff should be
trained and equipped to deal with the drug's effects. "We train for
earthquake preparedness, in the event we might have an earthquake. We
hope there never is, but we have that."

Carr herself took a one-day course through Fraser Health in August on
using naloxone to reverse the effects of a fentanyl overdose. "It's
not rocket science," she said, likening the kits to the EpiPens used
for anaphylactic allergic reactions.
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MAP posted-by: Matt