AST Digital Magazine October 2017 Digital-Oct | Page 80

Volume 17
October 2017 Edition
“My office started getting phone calls from all
around the world, more specifically from Can-
ada, the United States and Mexico, of different
police departments and agencies very interested
in learning from what we had done as it relates to
fentanyl detection,” Stebenne said. But the safety protocols are serious.
The RCMP decided to host a workshop to teach
others how to train dogs for fentanyl, and invited
everyone who had called. Second, when the animal locates the sample, it
doesn’t aggressively go after it.
Fentanyl is an opioid about 100 times more toxic
than morphine. It can cause serious harm, in-
cluding death, police say.
It has been used in tablets made to look like pre-
scription drugs.
The coroner’s service in B.C. reported that the
powerful painkiller fentanyl was detected in 72
per cent of people who died from overdoses in
the first four months of this year, up from 60 per
cent last year.
First, Stebenne said there’s a dedicated room at
the training facility and the liquid fentanyl is on a
secured side, and neither the dogs nor their han-
dlers can directly access the sample.
Rather, it sits, and that’s the signal to the handler
that it has found what it’s searching for.
Every handler carries antidote
In the real world, the fentanyl wouldn’t be in a
safe form so every handler carries Naloxone —
the antidote for fentanyl — in the form of a nasal
spray that can be administered to dogs as well
as people.
Safe training protocols stressed
The opioid fentanyl has already been responsi-
ble for hundreds of deaths in Alberta alone.
Stebenne said it’s no