Fentanyl becoming cheaper, easier to access on Regina streets: drug user

Fentanyl is the most accessible it has ever been in Regina due to increasing availability and dropping prices, according to one active drug user.

Daniel Missens can point out every drug house in his neighbourhood and he does not have to walk far to find a dealer.

“They’re just everywhere,” he said.

Missens has been clean for about a month, but fentanyl was his drug of choice for years.

When he first started, a point of fentanyl cost $50 to $60, he said. The price has gone down to $40 a point, but according to Missens, people can buy half a point for $20 and even get a small amount for as cheap as $10.

However, using the lower-cost drug could have big prices to pay.

Missens said drug dealers do not intentionally cause overdoses. Instead, they often warn customers of the different potencies based on the colour of the fentanyl. Even then, Missens said nothing is ever guaranteed to be safe.

“Drug dealers don’t know how much fentanyl is in there,” Missens said. “Your first high could have just a tiny amount. Then all of a sudden, your third high has 100 per cent more and then you’re overdosing.”

However, Missens’ biggest worry on the street is carfentanil, an opioid 100 times more potent than fentanyl. According to Missens, drug dealers are learning to make it themselves.

“You’re lucky if you get brought back with that Narcan,” he said.

‘WORSE THAN IT’S EVER BEEN’

Staff at Queen City Wellness Pharmacy have hung up warning signs to notify clients that carfentanil has been found in two different batches of fentanyl that were tested across the street at the friendship centre.

Sarah Kozusko, pharmacy operator, said staff respond to three to five overdoses in the area each week.

“Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t go so well, but we do what we can,” she said.

Queen City Wellness Pharmacy acts as a safe place for users to rest, eat and, get clean drug supplies.

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According to Kozusko, fentanyl and other substances act like a safety blanket to help “protect” users from past traumas and mental health issues. In order to take away that blanket, Kozusko said, we need to “turn up the heat” in the house.

“Housing and food are going to be two of the things we need, back to my analogy of the blanket, to turn up the heat,” she said. “Until we solve some of the housing problems, we’re not going to have a lot of movement on the addictions.”

Pharmacy staff try to connect clients with housing, mental health and addiction supports, including harm reduction drugs that help prevent withdrawal symptoms.

Kozusko said Regina’s addictions crisis is “worse than it’s ever been” after substance abuse got “astronomically worse” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have more supports than we have in the past, but still not where it needs to be,” Kozusko said. “It used to be back in my day, when you experimented with drugs, you didn’t die. Now people are dying after one use of a substance.”

Missens, who originally got into drugs through marijuana use, said no one ever wants to become an addict. For many, he said it is a product of their circumstances and often times a direct result of intergenerational trauma.

“If you talk to these people and ask them if they want to continue using this, they will tell you, ‘No I don’t,’” he said.