Blog

The deaths counted today as part of the "fentanyl crisis" are, in a direct and traceable line, consequences of decisions made in Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s. Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s. Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s. Who were these board room members and their relationship to the pharmaceutical industry? The Sackler family was not merely connected to the pharmaceutical industry, … This is a story with extraordinary depth

Fentanyl was synthesized in 1960 by the Belgian pharmacologist Paul Janssen, whose team was systematically modifying the structure of meperidine (Demerol) to explore new analgesics. The logic was structural chemistry: both meperidine and morphine share a piperidine ring, which Janssen believed was responsible for their analgesic properties. By making the molecule more fat-soluble, his team produced compounds that penetrated the central nervous system faster and with greater p

National fatality picture An average of 20 lives were lost each day in Canada because of opioid-related overdoses in 2024. Your estimate of ~6–7 for BC alone is consistent with this — BC, Alberta, and Ontario together account for the bulk of national deaths. Canada.ca National EMS responses (Canada-wide) There were a total of 272,875 EMS responses to suspected opioid-related overdoses reported between January 2017 and September 2025. A total of 28,084 EMS responses to suspect