The only safe-injection site in North America says 90% of clients’ heroin contained an opioid many times stronger than morphine

North America’s only supervised injection site for drugs like cocaine, speed and crystal meth has found that 90% of its clients’ heroin contained the powerful synthetic fentanyl.

Vancouver’s Insite, which offers health services including supervised injection, said that of the 173 drug checks it did for fentanyl in a month, 90% tested positive for the potent synthetic drug.

Fentanyl, which is about 30 to 50 times more powerful than heroin, has caught the attention of medical and law enforcement authorities across North America as it becomes connected to more and more deadly overdoses in the opioid epidemic.

“This is happening all over, other cities may not have the same degree of contamination we have here in Vancouver, but it’s coming,” said Mark Lysyshyn, medical health officer with Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates Insite.

This past week in the US, a spate of overdoses broke out in several cities, including Cincinnati, where officials suspect fentanyl is behind 78 overdoses in two days.

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During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
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During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
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