Mayor apologizes for spreading false story about teen dying from fentanyl-laced vape

published on February 6, 2018 by Bethany Lindsay in CBC News

‘You’d think even an amateur, small-town politician would know better than to repeat hearsay,’ Karl Buhr wrote

The mayor of Lions Bay, B.C., told a public meeting last month that his son’s “best friend” had died after taking a single hit from fentanyl-laced vape liquid.

As it turns out, nothing about the story was true.

On Friday, Karl Buhr apologized to residents of the sleepy B.C. village for spreading a rumour that had no factual basis.

“You’d think even an amateur, small-town politician would know better than to repeat hearsay, because upon further inquiry, I find that nothing happened at Rockridge [Secondary School in West Vancouver]. There was never laced vape juice, and what likely did happen was elsewhere and for other causes,” Buhr wrote in a “Village Update” posted online.

“I apologize to all affected by my incorrect statement.”

Buhr has not said where he heard the rumour, and told CBC News he will not comment any further.

But Leslie McBain, the mother of a young B.C. man who died of an opioid overdose, described the mayor’s comments as “hugely irresponsible.”

“To construct a story like this makes everybody look bad — certainly the mayor and certainly anyone who’s walking around vaping — and makes kids mistrustful of authority,” said McBain, co-founder of the harm reduction group Moms Stop the Harm and the family engagement lead for the B.C. Centre on Substance Use.

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