A dangerous painkiller that is exponentially more potent than heroin is being blamed for a spate of deaths in B.C.

Nearly two dozen people have died in 2013 as a result of taking the drug fentanyl, which is used primarily for cancer patients in severe pain, according to B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall.

Fentanyl caused just 20 deaths in all of 2012.

Kendall is now warning first responders that drug users taking the opioid might think it’s heroin or oxycodone as they cause nearly identical symptoms.

“People who are used to taking heroin at a certain strength, if they took an equivalent amount of fentanyl, it’s an overdose,” he said.

“Because they could have taken a significantly larger amount of fentanyl, the drug that you used to reverse the overdose…you may have to give 10 times as much as you would normally give.”

Kendall said the deaths have been spread out all over the province, including a few on Vancouver Island, suggesting the problem is not confined to a particular area.

A spokesperson for Vancouver Coastal Health confirmed that only three of the 23 overdoses occurred in the authority’s service area .

Vancouver police inadvertently seized a large supply of the drug recently, believing it to be cocaine and oxycodone, according to Const. Brian Montague.

“It turns out that was not cocaine but fentanyl, and the oxycodone was actually a fake…oxycodone with fentanyl in it," he said.

Montague said the shape-shifting drug is concerning because fentanyl can be ingested as a powder, injected, or swallowed in pill form.

“It could affect not only the hardcore drug users but the recreational users as well,” he said. “Anyone who’s taking a drug that isn’t prescribed to them should be concerned.”

According to the ministry, 342 people died during a fentanyl epidemic in Chicago seven years ago.

Fentanyl facts:

  • Produces symptoms indistinguishable from other opioids like heroin
  • Often looks identical to heroin, cocaine or oxycodone and can come in similar packaging
  • An overdose requires much larger doses of naloxone, the drug that reverses it
  • Can be absorbed through mucous membranes just by handling it

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