Fentanyl Disguised as Percocet Has Been Found in Ontario

June 23, 2016, 2:44pm

As Canada is already in the midst of a crippling opioid crisis that has affected some of its most populous provinces by killing hundreds per year, more bootleg fentanyl has made its way into Ontario. Disguised as the popular painkillers Percocet and Oxycodone (OxyContin), police have issued a warning in northwestern Ontario about pills they seized that were found to contain fentanyl and caffeine after lab analysis.

Though fentanyl being disguised as Oxys are popular in Western Canada, the emergence of fentanyl made to look like Percocet being found in significant amounts in Ontario is a troubling development in the bootleg fentanyl market.

OxyContin was pulled from pharmacy shelves in 2012 and replaced with a form that is harder to abuse, OxyNeo, which looks different. Bootleg fentanyl popular in Canada usually appears in the form of pills that look like the old version of OxyContin—blue-green, round, with an “80” printed on one side. However, Percocet, which is usually a round, white pill, is still very much available as a prescription drug in Canada. Because of its availability as a legitimate pharmaceutical drug, a bootleg version on the streets could have even deadlier consequences since users would be less likely to know that the drug they’re using could actually be fentanyl.

Nishnawbe-Aski police, Thunder Bay police, and Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have issued a joint public warning due to the high risk of overdose from the synthetic opioid fentanyl, which is up to 50 times more potent than heroin and about 100 times more powerful than morphine. Fentanyl, though known as a prescription drug available in patch form put on skin, has created a full-on public health crisis mainly due to a bootleg version likely trafficked into Canada from China.

Police say they believe that the the drugs in this particular seizure in Ontario of fentanyl disguised as Oxys and Percocet was destined for Thunder Bay and remote First Nation communities.

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