A recent spike in fentanyl overdose deaths in Vancouver and Toronto may be the result of a change in format in the drug that has not yet hit Chatham-Kent.
Constable Nelson Das Neves with the Chatham-Kent police drug unit says it is made as a pill.
"The troubling part is it's made to look like oxycodone which is not nearly as potent as fentanyl," he says. "Fentanyl is approximately 100 times more powerful than morphine so the abuse of fentanyl becoming fairly widespread is a short period of time is very troublesome."
Das Neves says the fentanyl pill actually resemble the much less potent oxycodone, and that may be deliberate as dealers try to get addicts hooked on the stronger drug.
Police figures show four Chatham-Kent residents died of fentanyl overdoses in 2014, but Das Neves believes a patch exchange program is showing signs of success at getting it off the street.