On Monday morning Swift Current Municipal RCMP seized cocaine that also tested positive for the presence of fentanyl following a medical emergency.

The Swift Current detachment's Staff Sergeant Gary Hodges said yesterday afternoon that no charges had been laid at that time, with the individual whom the product was taken from still medically indisposed.

It looks more like a matter of personal possession at this point.

Fentanyl - an opioid far stronger than heroin or morphine - is extremely deadly. RCMP members carry kits with naloxone (which treats overdoses), and Hodges said nobody from the Swift Current detachment has had to use it.

"Even airborne fentanyl can be fatal," said Hodges. "And I know I heard about six months ago, the statistics in B.C. with the RCMP members there that they'd administered 75 Narcan doses to the members that were on the street that encountered it through investigation."

While the police haven't come across it much in Swift Current, that doesn't mean it's not around.

"It was present about eight months ago, I believe we had a seizure here, and now we've obviously seen it here in the last couple days," said Hodges, who said it's hard to tell whether the amount of fentanyl in Swift Current has been on the incline. "Time will tell in the not-to-distant future, I would answer the question maybe differently if we saw maybe two or three more occurrences of it. We don't learn of every individual that goes into medical distress as a result of exposure to fentanyl either necessarily. All we can deal with is what we become aware of really."

From the start of 2017 through to the end of October, the B.C. Coroner's Report cited 999 illicit drug overdose deaths where fentanyl was present. While it's more commonly associated with being found in heroin or with other opioids, its presence in cocaine is not unheard of.

"When we're talking about fentanyl, a fatal dose is the equivalent of a grain of salt or two," Hodges said. "Again, if a dealer is mixing fentanyl in with cocaine, he's not doing it in a chemistry lab where that mixing is precise. He might be using a mixmaster, and that dose may contain three or four grains of fentanyl in one package of cocaine or eight ball that's sold, and the next one may have one or two."

There are kits to test drugs for the presence of fentanyl, but they can be fairly pricey. People in the southwest at risk of overdosing are able to acquire free naloxone kits through the Saskatchewan Health Authority.

For Hodges, preventing further health emergencies related to fentanyl begins with the public.

"It's a societal problem that we need society to assist us in dealing with."