Public health, police warn dangerous 'Pyro' found in city's drug supply

Published Jun 27, 2024 • Last updated 10 hours ago • 2 minute read

File photo of a naloxone kit. Photo by Emma Meldrum /THE DAILY PRESS / POSTMEDIA NETWORK

Ottawa Public Health and Ottawa police are warning about the danger of a new drug – known by the street name ‘Pyro’ – that has been detected in the city’s unregulated drug supply.

In a joint public alert issued Thursday, the organizations, along with the city’s Overdose Prevention and Response Taskforce, said Health Canada has for the first time found a sample of the drug, N-pyrrolidino etonitazene (etonitazepyne), in Ottawa.

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The drug was found in counterfeit hydromorphone M8 tablets; the white tablets were labeled with an ‘M’ and ‘8.’

Ottawa Public Health said etonitazepyne is part of a new class of drugs known as nitazenes – synthetic opioids that are about 10 times more toxic than fentanyl, and up to 1,500 times more toxic than morphine.

“Because of this toxicity, the risk of overdose is increased,” they warned, “and greater than normal doses of naloxone may be required to help individuals experiencing an overdose.”

Naloxone is a medication that can temporarily reverse the effects of an otherwise fatal opioid overdose.

Read the public health alert

Nitazenes can be cut or mixed with other drugs, and in Ontario, they have been found in the street supplies of what users thought to be oxycondone (OxyContin), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), hydrocone and Percocet.

They were first found in Ontario’s unregulated drug supply in 2021.

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction, nitazenes were developed 60 years ago as a potential pain relief medication but never approved for clinical use.

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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration first identified nitazenes in the U.S. drug supply in 2019 and later warned about its move into the Eastern seaboard in June 2022. The D.E.A. said the drugs are being “sourced from China and being mixed into other drugs.”

Nitazenes are being mixed with other drugs because it makes them cheaper to produce while also making them more potent, the D.E.A. said.

Since 2016, the opioid epidemic has claimed the lives of more than 40,000 Canadians, with the vast majority of those deaths (80 per cent) linked to fentanyl or one of its many analogues.

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