Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy first to offer drug checking in B.C. Interior

A Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in Vernon, B.C., is the first pharmacy in the B.C. Interior to offer drug checking. People who want to use the service come in and give a sample of their drugs to staff. They put it in a Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy machine, which can usually show the main components of the drug and the potential risks in minutes. “With every sample that we receive, we would communicate to the patient what it is and what’s in it. Our machine matches it to a library of known spectra for known components, and we would tell the patient what it detected,” Jodi Cunningham, owner of the pharmacy, said in a story in the Tablet, a magazine for members of the British Columbia Pharmacy Association. Sometimes, those drug checks might also result in province-wide drug alerts. Read: How to be more effective at helping youth prevent illicit drug overdoseFrom January to March 2024, 572 people in British Columbia died from taking unregulated drugs, according to the BC Coroners Service. Ninty-three of those were in the Interior. Most deaths are from fentanyl, which was involved in 84.5% of unregistered drug deaths in the province in 2023.Cunningham says she feels the effects personally. “We’re losing patients regularly, and it’s heartbreaking,” she told the Tablet. People who come in with drugs are taken to a consultation area where a technician talks with them about the kind of drug they believe they have. That’s also a time to discuss harm reduction measures and connect them to community supports if they’re needed, Cunningham said. People don’t have to provide their names to get the test done, and the service is publicly funded. Read: Health Canada approves B.C.'s request to re-prohibit illicit drug-use in most public spacesThe pharmacy also offers fentanyl and benzodiazepine test strips, and take-home fentanyl test strips. Cunningham started the service after Interior Health reached out to her. They were familiar with the pharmacy because it was the first to offer opioid agonist treatment delivery services for people in supportive housing and shelters. Saying yes, she says, was a “no-brainer.” “I personally believe that those of us who can do more should do more. Throughout B.C., we’re seeing the effects of the toxic drug crisis. In Vernon, we see a huge problem in the vulnerable and marginalized population here being able to access care. We need to provide more services.”Read: Report says Winnipeg mobile overdose prevention site exceeds expectations

Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy first to offer drug checking in B.C. Interior

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