The amount of fentanyl needed to cause a fatal overdose varies from person to person, but the generally accepted amount of a potentially lethal dose is only two milligrams – approximately the size of a few grains of sugar.
During a recent arrest at a drug lab in the Fraser Valley in British Columbia, RCMP officials said they had found enough raw material to produce 160 million doses of fentanyl of that size.
The 320 pounds of fentanyl that Mountis said the home lab could produce would theoretically be enough to kill every single person in Canada four times and still have enough of the drug to kill most of Ontario for fifth time.
It is unclear exactly where the June 2 seizure of a rural home in Chiliwak ranks compared to other drug arrests made by the RCMP Secret Laboratory Enforcement and Response Team (CLEAR). CTV News has asked Mounties for more information in this regard and will update this story if a response is received.
Wherever it occurs, the seizure is significant. The BC RCMP’s Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit (FSOC) said in a press release that the CLEAR team found “significant cash from chemicals used in the production of synthetic drugs” during a search of an Extrom Road home.
Among the items seized were 160 liters of propionyl chloride – which the RCMP describes as a “Class A precursor” – and more than 2,000 liters of “industrial solvents commonly used in the illicit manufacture of synthetic drugs,” police said.
Investigators also found “other indications that a secret laboratory was in the early stages of construction,” according to police.
No arrests were made during the search, Mountis said, adding that no charges had yet been filed in the investigation.
“The recovery of these precursors represents a significant disruption to the illicit synthetic drug market,” Supt said. Bert Ferreira, Officer in charge of the BC RCMP FSOC Border Integrity Program, in a press release.
“More importantly, this seizure prevents additional deadly drugs from harming our communities, which continue to suffer from the opioid crisis.”
Last year saw the highest number of deaths from illicit drug overdoses ever recorded in British Columbia, and the first four months of 2022 set the province at a pace to overshadow the record again.
There were 722 deaths from overdoses from January to April, averaging 180.5 a month or more than six a day.
Fentanyl was registered in the systems of 83 percent of deaths from overdoses in BC during the period.
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