Tainted drugs could surface in Calgary
Posted Jun 5, 2011 1:59 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Calgary police say tainted drugs could show up in our city.
The comments come after a Strathmore teen died from allegedly taking contaminated ecstacy.
The 15-year-old boy and a 19 year-old friend were rushed to hospital Friday, after they were spotted in distress at the local skatepark.
While the older teen survived, the 15-year-old boy wasn’t as lucky.
Police say it’s always possible the next hit could be a fatal one.
There haven’t been any recent reports of tainted drugs in Calgary, but Duty Insp. James Hardy tells 660News all illegal drugs run the risk of being contaminated.
“When you’re using these narcotics, there’s always chances that you’re going to get a bad load of drugs, so on top of the issues that the drugs produce, the long-term side affects and addictions, you have the potential to cause yourself some serious harm,” he says.
“The drug dealers, in some cases are naive when they’re mixing it up, or they just don’t care how they’re producing their products,” he explains. “It’s all about profit, and they’ll put all kinds of different chemicals and cutting agents in there to expand the drugs so they can make more money.”
Hardy says it’s impossible to tell the difference between a pill that’s been tainted and one that isn’t just by looking at it.
The teens in Strathmore were said to be taking yellow ecstasy pills, with a Mickey Mouse logo on them. Hardy says he’s seen ones just like them—meant to entice young teens.
It’s still not clear if the drugs the teens allegedly took were actually tainted. Police are waiting for the results of an autopsy to determine the 15-year-old’s cause of death.
