RCMP warn fake Oxycontin likely still in Sask.

“That investigation was extremely relevant and important because we were able to disrupt for a time – we realize it won’t stop the supply of pills coming into the province – but it certainly disrupted a large quantity of pills that were coming into the province,” Nave said.

Late last week, Regina police seized more pills matching the description of fake Oxycontin – green pills with the number 80 stamped on them. Although the Regina Police Service issued a warning about the potential trafficking of fake Oxycontin pills in the city, officers would not quantify how many pills they seized last week saying only that it was a “small quantity.”

The RCMP also will not say how widespread the pills could be in other cities and small communities across the province.

“To be fair, I don’t know if I can answer how much, but they are out there,” Nave explained.

He is very concerned about spreading the safety message because he says addiction to prescription drugs is a vast problem across the province. He says these fake Oxycontin pills pose a significant danger because they look real and addicts may not notice the difference immediately.

“The danger that we’re running into with the fake Oxys is that they look like pills that you would get from a pharmacy. They look like something that potentially would come from a doctor, we’ve even seen pills that have a stamp on it,” Nave said. “Although they do vary in colour a little bit – we’ve seen them darker green and lighter green – most people could potentially think that’s where they are coming from.”

He says most addicts know to some extent what they are buying on the street, but in the case of fake Oxycontin pills designed to look like prescription pills, they have no idea what they are getting.

“It’s not coming from a manufacturer and certainly not from a pharmacy so the problem is one pill that’s being sold on the street, one pill could potentially have fatal consequences because of the inconsistent mix of drugs to make the fake Oxy like fentanyl.”

Fentanyl is a synthetic opiod drug that can be up to 100 times more potent than morphine, so even the slightest inconsistency can have lethal consequences. Nave says addiction to prescription painkillers is a very quiet and humbling addiction and people can often live with it in secrecy. For that reason, he wants everyone to heed this warning because they may know someone living with an addiction.

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by Adriana Christianson

RCMP warn fake Oxycontin likely still in Sask.

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