A Party Drug, Pain killer And Not Easily Detected At Airports; Africa Be Ware

With the highest youth population in the world, Africa needs to brace itself with what may turn out to be a disadvantage if neglected by policy and programming. We are talking of addiction with painkillers.

Jaime Watt writing for The Star in an article titled : Fentanyl crisis echoes mistakes of HIV/AIDS response shows a likelihood of this happening in any place outside Canada. When one reads the article, one discerns the ease with which pain killer drugs may get in the hands of many of the youths who may use such as a party drug. The other question is whether Africa is ready to curb such an assault? Because, it will affect the youths, will governments come out strongly to address it? Such scenarios are both apocalyptic and futuristic. 

Abuse of fentanyl, the highly addictive opioid pain medication, is taking a menacing toll across Canada.

Opioid-related overdoses killed 1,400 Canadians last year. To label the situation a coast-to-coast crisis is a massive understatement.

Fentanyl can be found in knock-off prescription painkillers, in party drugs and even in cocaine.

The fact that other drugs are being laced with fentanyl means that drug users often haven’t actively sought out the “thrill” of fentanyl and don’t even realize what they’ve done until it’s too late.

Jaime continues to argue that "My firm, Navigator, has recently conducted a nationwide survey on public opinion relating to the fentanyl crisis in Canada. Today, only half of Canadians say they are familiar with fentanyl-related issues. What’s more troubling is that those most vulnerable, those aged 16 to 17, are least familiar. Only 4 in 10 teens are aware of the crisis.

The impact has, to date, been uneven across our country and so, therefore, has awareness. For example, 70 per cent of British Columbians express awareness compared to only 49 per cent of Torontonians.

The fentanyl crisis has spread so quickly, the public hardly noticed it was happening. Government officials didn’t notice it either. As a result, it went largely unaddressed. And as so often happens, issues affecting the poorest or most vulnerable among us are the last to be noticed. It has only been as the crisis has transcended class lines and begun affecting suburban teenagers that the outcry has begun.

Also, problematically and mistakenly, the fentanyl issue has been seen primarily as a matter of criminal justice.

If it is to be dealt with successfully, it must be seen as a matter of public health. In a hospital, a person who dulls their pain with fentanyl is a patient. On the street, that same person is a criminal."

Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is an opioid which is used as a pain medication and together with other medications for anesthesia. Fentanyl is also made illegally and used as a recreational drug, often mixed with heroin or cocaine. It has a rapid onset and effects generally last less than an hour or two. Medically, fentanyl is used by injection, as a patch on the skin, as a nasal spray, or in the mouth.

n the UK, fentanyl is classified as a controlled Class A drug under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.^[78]

In the Netherlands, fentanyl is a List I substance of the Opium Law.

In the U.S., fentanyl is a Schedule II controlled substance per the Controlled Substance Act. Distributors of Abstral are required to implement an FDA-approved risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) program. In order to curb misuse, many health insurers have begun to require pre-certification and/or quantity limits for Actiq prescriptions.

The wholesale cost in the developing world as of 2015 is between US$0.08 and US$0.81 per 100 microgram vial.In the United States this amount costs about US$0.40 as of 2017. In the United States the patches cost US$11.22 for a 12 µg/hr version and US$8.74 for a 100 µg/hr version.

Brand names include:

Sublimaze, Actiq, Duragesic, Duragesic, Fentora, Matrifen, Haldid, Onsolis, Instanyl, Abstral, Lazanda. 

Subsys is a sublingual spray of fentanyl manufactured by Insys Therapeutics.

Source:FDA Approved Drug Products. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Source:FDA Approved Drug Products. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Source:FDA Approved Drug Products. U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

A man walks past a mural by street artist Smokey D. painted as a response to the fentanyl and opioid overdose crisis, in the downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C. in December.  (DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS)