The Sûreté du Québec has confirmed an illegal lab raided on Friday in the Eastern Townships was packaging fentanyl into pills for the drug market—the first time one has been found in Quebec.
The rise of fentanyl in illegal narcotics has led to British Columbia declaring it a provincial crisis. As of November there were 755 overdose deaths in 2016, and fentanyl was found in about half of the autopsies by a provincial coroner.
While Quebec, in comparison, has been spared, SQ Sergeant Ronald McInnis says the one kilogram mixture of fentanyl found at the lab in Potton, to the south west of Sherbrooke, shows things "are picking up."
Back in 2014, Montreal's public health authority looked into 28 overdose deaths in the city and found fentanyl in several autopsies, but it was not the cause of death in all the cases.
The opioid is considered to be 50 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than heroin, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and incredibly addicting and debilitating.
Last Friday, at a lab found in Potton in the Eastern Townships, police seized one kilogram of a substance later determined to be a mix of fentanyl and the anti-anxiety medication alprazolam better known as Xanax, as well two pill presses.
Police also conducted raids on properties in Longueuil, Boucherville, and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, seizing 400 kg of raw substances used in drug production, four grams of cannabis, a vial of liquid resembling GHB, a stun gun, 500$ in Canadian money, 13 signal jammers and two vehicles.
No arrests were made in connection to the lab or raids.
"What's important to know is that these drugs are produced by amateurs who improvise and work in unhealthy conditions," said SQ spokeswoman Joyce Kemp. "They work with chemicals that are explposive and harmful to health and to the environment."
Kemp highlights that the public can play a role in preventing fentanyl from wreaking havoc on the streets of Quebec.
"Some investigations are launched following information that is received from the public so we encourage any person that does have information concerning these types of offences to give us information."
The SQ invites anyone to submit tips anonymously on illegal drug production at 1-800-659-4264.