The BCCSU publishes Provincial and regional monthly reports that summarize drug checking results. Here is the October 2022 report from samples collected by Drug Checking Sites across the Interior Health region.

Key Findings

• The percentage of opioids testing positive for benzodiazepines in the region increased from 50.0% to 65.1% in October (82 of 126 samples). Trends may be hard to infer due the large geographic region, and the true rate may be higher than reported here because benzodiazepines, and benzodiazepine-like substances like etizolam, may be missed by drug checking technologies.
•  Etizolam was the most frequent benzodiazepine detected by FTIR, found present in 3 opioid samples. This indicates samples had concentrations of etizolam above 5%, high enough to be detectable by FTIR.
•  An increase in the number of opioid samples tested was observed in October, while the number of samples tested in all other drug categories either declined, or remained consistent.

Find the full report here.