can be extremely habit forming and can lead to a very strong withdrawal phenomenon,' said Wood. 'We know that drugs that are very fast on and very fast off. However, fentanyl does act more quickly than other opioids, making it fit the profile of drugs that are very difficult to stop using, he said. One young man addicted to fentanyl told CBC Reporter Natalie Clancy that his dope sick, skin-on-fire withdrawal from fentanyl was 10 times worse than heroin.īut because the drug is so new, there isn't empirical research to show fentanyl withdrawal is any worse, said Wood. 'There's very little margin of error. It's much easier to overdose on it,' said Maté.īryson Diaz, 23, describes the 'dope sick' feeling he gets coming off fentanyl: 'my skin's on fire, melting off me … it's the worst feeling.' (CBC) On that scale, it's very easy for someone using fentanyl to take too much and very difficult for traffickers diluting the drug to be precise with their product. To get a microgram, that same pill would have to be cut into 400,000 pieces. Try cutting that pill in 400 pieces. Each is a milligram. Most of us don't deal regularly in millionths of a gram, but here's a way to visualize how small that is:Ī typical pill you might take for a headache - ibuprofen - is 400 milligrams. fentanyl addict who returned from the dead government fails to deliver fentanyl crisis fix ANALYSIS | 'There's definitely blood on the premier's hands': B.C.

the doses of fentanyl we measure in micrograms, which is one millionth of a gram,' he said. whereas the doses of morphine we measure in milligrams. Therapeutically, it's often delivered by IV or a slow-release patch but still in very small quantities.

He has used fentanyl on patients for pain relief in palliative care. Gabor Maté, a retired physician who worked in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and now teaches and lectures on addiction.

(Delta police) 'Little margin of error'įentanyl's strength means it's easy for people to take much more than they think they are, said Dr. A pan in the oven of the Burnaby, B.C., drug lab where police allege fentanyl synthesized elsewhere was being cut with other products to make street drugs.

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