A day after CTV News reported that North Bay Police Chief Scott Tod is lobbying for a national task force to combat the opioid crisis, the local health unit says it`s seeing a spike in a dangerous form of purple heroin in the city.
The North Bay Parry Sound District health unit has issued a community-wide drug alert. The health unit believes the purple heroin floating around the city is more potent than normal, due to an increased amount of overdoses.
"In the past two weeks, there’s been six overdoes reported to the health unit that relate to purple heroin,” says health unit epidemiologist Auburn Larose. “We’re also finding not a lot of people are calling 9-1-1 when that happens."
Purple heroin, which is also called "purp" or "purple," is often made up of heroin, OxyContin and fentanyl or carfentanil.
The health unit wants to send a clear message to people using the drug:
"If they do use it, make sure to start with a smaller dose right now, because the potency seems to be higher. And call 9-1-1 if something doesn’t feel right, and always carry naloxone kits," says Larose.
The health unit says the recent overdoses that were reported required three doses of naloxone to reverse the effects of the drug, but that a standard kit only contains two.
As part of the proposed national task force, Scott Tod says he would want to examine opioid data related to deaths and near-deaths.
