While Sarnia police work to take fentanyl off of the streets, those in the medical community are trying to help people addicted to opioids.
Dr. Delmar Donald, who works at the Bluewater Methadone Clinic, said nearly all of the patients he sees use fentanyl.
"We have about 900 [patients]. Sixty-five per cent of them are probably drug-free but it seems to be a little more difficult to get people clean on powdered fentanyl, especially if they have really high tolerances," he said.
During a media conference at Sarnia police's headquarters on Wednesday, Donald said some people may be using up to two grams of powdered fentanyl per day.
"It takes us longer with a person on methadone to get them to a level that is replacing the powdered fentanyl," he said. "To get around that, we're adding another drug, in the beginning, to try and fill that opiate deficit."
After 24 hours, the amount of methadone is then increased. Donald said drugs like buprenorphine can't be used unless a person is in withdrawal, otherwise administering it could cause withdrawal.
"So the problem with powdered fentanyl is it lasts much longer than medicinal fentanyl and because of that, we sometimes have to wait a couple of days to start them on buprenorphine," said Donald.
"When it was the days of oxycontin, we never had a patient over 120 milligrams of methadone. Now, we have people that [are at] 190 mg and this is just to meet the tolerance."
One thing Donald said people often don't realize is that once someone becomes dependent on opioids, they need a certain amount of it in order to function normally.
"Unlike all the other substances, once you get dependent on opioids, you're not normal unless you have a certain amount. If you have more than that, then you get high; if you have less than that, you don't function," he said.
Oftentimes, patients will relapse due to various circumstances.
Det. Sgt. Mike Howell of the Sarnia Police Service's Vice Unit said there were 194 overdoses reported to police last year, however, that doesn't include other parts of the county. Howell said the number of overdoses is also likely larger when accounting for unreported incidents.
Preliminary statistics from Lambton Public Health indicated there were nine fatal overdoses from January to March.
Despite being a border city, Howell said a lot of the synthetic opiates being distributed in Sarnia are from outside crime groups, usually from the Greater Toronto Area.
"There is information that when it comes to pure fentanyl, it's being imported through China, coming into Canada," said Howell.
Members of the Sarnia Police Service seized $121,265 worth of fentanyl during a traffic stop on Tuesday, where a 29-year-old Oshawa man was arrested and charged.