The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporter

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

AS illicit fentanyl use rises in The Bahamas, experts hope to prevent a crisis.

“Over the past three years, we’ve noticed a trend in positive fentanyl cases in our toxicology section and we’ve been monitoring that,” said Police Chief Superintendent Earl Thompson, director of the police force’s Scientific Support Services, during a press conference yesterday. “We realised that from 2018 we’ve had six deaths that can be attributed to illicit fentanyl. Out of those six persons that would have died, two of them were Bahamians.”

Police Chief Superintendent Roberto Tyrone Goodman, officer-in-charge of the Drug Enforcement Unit, added: “In the last five years, we’ve seen an increase of these pills imported into the country. We’ve also seen these pills used around places like nightclubs and parties and when we execute search warrants on various residents in our country.

“We have young persons who were arrested by my office, the Drug Enforcement Unit. When I would follow up on the facts, they discovered that they executed search warrants on a resident. They met inside the residence, persons making tablets. They have almost like a dispensary, like a clandestine lab inside of their residence. There was a pill press machine along with fillers and what they’re doing is that they are taking these depressants and these painkillers and they are adding them and they are crushing them. They also take in the empty capsules and fill in those empty capsules.

“We found many cases of this, I think about three so far, between last year and this year. And that’s why we have to be so careful of when we take in these capsules, because the capsules inside, when we took them to our forensic lab, they contained cocaine filled inside of these empty capsules. So that’s something we want the public to be aware of.

“During some of our investigations, we found that some of the physicians, I can say are not really too clean, and we know we have corrupt persons in our society who are distributing or dispensing these to persons or prescribing these to persons in our society and that’s something we have to be mindful of. We don’t want our nation to be destroyed because of this drug use and we’ve seen fentanyl. It is here.”

Fentanyl is prescribed to treat severe pain, typically from acute traumatic pain or advanced cancer. Illicit fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. Officials say just two milligrams or a drug tablet can be lethal.

Officials said amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act and the Pharmacy Act are needed so first responders and medical facilities can address the problem. Currently, hospitals and clinics do not have the necessary resources.

“The challenge is that our first responders are not equipped with the resources to deal with opiate overdose,” said Dr Cyprian Collie, a forensic toxicologist in the Scientific Support Services of the police force. “So let’s not wait until we have a string of ten, 20, 30 deaths.”

Dr Kirk Christie, head of addiction services at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre, said first responders and doctors could treat illicit Fentanyl use with an intranasal Narcan naloxone nasal spray.

“I’ve spoken with other persons in the community, the head of ambulance services and expressed my concerns so that it is made available in the community, but we also need self-awareness,” he said.

Mr Christie said signs of illicit fentanyl could be unusual snoring and respiratory issues.

Andrea Johnson-Thompson lost her son in August to illicit fentanyl use.

“My son, Dre, I have never seen my son take a pill from the day he was born to him leaving home, even when in pain getting his braces,” she said.

“I would say, ‘Come on baby, take a Panadol.’ He hated it. So I don’t understand.

“I continue to pray. I will not stop until justice is served for my son. It won’t bring him back. But I have four younger sons who are suffering. My pain is exacerbated because not only did I lose Dre, and so suddenly he was snatched from me, but my four other sons are in so much pain and I can’t take their pain away. It’s unbearable.”