Double trouble: New drug on B.C. streets brings hallucinations, vomiting, ICU after overdose

published on March 2, 2026 by Penny Daflos in CTV News

For months, British Columbia’s health officials have been issuing warnings about a new street drug that’s sent overdose calls soaring, but the risk of withdrawal hasn’t been well understood.

The animal tranquilizer, medetomidine, has been found mixed with the opioid fentanyl in up to half of the drugs tested by the B.C. Centre for Substance Use. It’s that combination, increasingly found across Canada, that makes the situation so challenging and increasingly life-threatening.

“Naloxone is still effective and it will reverse the fentanyl component of the overdose, (and) the added complication with medetomidine is that we also are having very complicated withdrawal syndromes,” said Dr. Nadia Fairbairn, a St. Paul’s Hospital physician and addiction specialist who’s treated those patients…