New drug-checking technology that can tell substance users what is actually in their drugs is coming to 10 Canadian safe consumption sites, including one in London, thanks to a nearly $2 million federal grant.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Carolyn Bennett announced on Friday the $1,995,775 to deploy the tabletop, sophisticated devices to sites in Ontario, Nova Scotia, and B.C. She used Western University as the backdrop for the announcement, a fitting move as the new tech was developed with the help of one of the post secondary institution’s professors.
François Lagugné-Labarthet, a chemistry professor and Raman spectroscopy expert, worked with SCATR Inc., a startup company founded by Western grad Ari Forman and Toronto Metropolitan University graduate Alex Boukin, to come up with a faster way to analyze street drugs without destroying the sample. What they landed on was a nondescript black cube no bigger than two shoeboxes that uses Raman spectroscopy – an analysis of how light interacts with chemical bonds within a material – to determine a substance’s molecular composition and chemical structure. From that a person would be able to know what potentially dangerous fillers or other drugs, such as fentanyl analogues, might be in a substance they plan on consuming.
Chemistry professor Francois Lagugné-Labarthet (left) with SCATR Inc., founders Ari Forman (centre) and Alex Boukin. Photo by Christopher Kindratsky/Western Communications
“The devastating effects of the opioid crisis are on the news almost every day and the fatalities are staggering,” he said. “Our hope is to help find solutions to reduce those numbers,” said Lagugné-Labarthet.
Consumption site workers would just have to insert a small drug sample from a user into the device to know in less than 15 minutes exactly what it contains. Having this knowledge would give people who use drugs at the facility the ability to make informed decisions about their use.
“We continue to see overdoses and people experiencing on-going health care challenges as a result of the toxic drug supply in our community,” said Sonja Burke, director of harm reduction services at Regional HIV-AIDS Connection, the agency that operates London’s permanent consumption site Carepoint. “So, this really is a game changer. It will provide people who use drugs a way to have more information at their fingertips and empower them in their decision making.”
Data from the devices, which are networked together and utilize powerful machine-learning algorithms, can also be used to flag specific samples that have dangerous properties or have caused adverse reactions. Also being kept track of as part of the pilot project, whether drug composition is the same as what was expected and whether or not the person checking their sample changed their behaviour by reducing their dose or choosing not to use it after understanding its composition.
“The unique thing about our technology is that it was designed from the ground up for the sole purpose of harm reduction, and the features were developed with feedback from people with lived experience who use drugs,” said Forman.
The drug-checking pilot project was one of 42 innovative community-led projects selected to share in over $37 million in funding from Health Canada’s substance use and addictions program.
