A new opioid has been detected in Toronto’s unregulated drug supply, according to a new report, and users may not even know they’re taking it.
Toronto’s Drug Checking Service said in a report last week that a new opioid, known as cychlorphine, was found in three fake pharmaceutical opioid samples collected in the city’s downtown core and the west end between Oct. 25 and 28.
One of the samples was expected to be hydromorphone, Dilaudid, another was expected to be oxycodone, OxyContin, and the third was said to be Percocet. But none contained their expected drug — only cychlorphine, the report said.
Karen McDonald, the executive director for Toronto’s Drug Checking Service, said those using the opioid don’t even know it.
“There appears to be an emerging trend where it (cychlorphine) is presenting in kind of fake pharmaceutical opioids that people aren’t expecting it to be in,” she told CBC on Tuesday.
Cychlorphine is a synthetic opioid with unknown strength and effects, said Toronto’s Drug Checking Service. Other related orphine opioids are considered to be as strong as fentanyl.
The opioid death rate in 2024 has decreased by 17 per cent since 2023, according to a Public Health Agency of Canada report. However, numbers remain high. DJ Larkin, executive director of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, says the preservation of supervised consumption sites and addressing underlying social factors are key to sustaining the decline.
The risk of overdose can vary depending on the strength of cychlorphine and how much of it is used, the report said.
So far, none of the samples are associated with an overdose, said McDonald.
Cychlorphine was first detected in an expected Percocet sample on Sept. 12, McDonald said, but Health Canada had detected it before in seized drug samples from law enforcement in Ontario.
McDonald said she wants to bring awareness that the new drug exists and is present in Toronto.
“Our main goal right now is just to educate people about what we know about this drug and also inform people that it is circulating and that at this point in time. If you were using those specific pharmaceutical opioids, there is a chance that this opioid could be in that drug,” she said.
Naloxone should reverse the effects of cychlorphine and other such opioids in an overdose situation, the drug checking service said.
Last year, more than 2,200 Ontarians died from opioids, a 15 per cent decrease from 2023, according to data from the Office of the Chief Coroner.
The mortality rate from opioid overdoses was 14.3 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024. Fentanyl and its related substances were found in more than 83 per cent of opioid toxicity deaths, while stimulants were found in 69 per cent of deaths, the data shows.
