'We won't have any fatalities on our watch': The Bear Clan can now use naloxone

The next time the Bear Clan Patrol hits the streets, its members will be armed with naloxone kits and the training to use them.

Nearly 30 members of the North End community group received a free, 20-minute crash-course in how to administer the overdose-reversing drug at Brothers Pharmacy on Thursday night.

• 'I don't want to lose any more friends,' woman says after man found dead in car
• Winnipeg fentanyl user says friends have died because of lack of help

Bear Clan Patrol spokesman James Favel has spoken publicly about the need for his group to have access to the kits, and he saidthe pharmacy reached out to make it happen.

Bear Clan learns how to use naloxone

8 years ago

Duration 1:03

On Thursday, nearly 30 members of the Bear Clan received free training on how to administer the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

"Now with the naloxone kits, we're just better able to serve our community and that's what we really want to see more of," Favel said Thursday evening at the pharmacy on Selkirk Avenue.

"The generosity of these people here is going to make it so we won't have any fatalities on our watch."

$15 for a kit

The kits come with non-latex gloves, alcohol swabs, a one-way valve rescue breather to help administer CPR, plus instructions in French and English and two syringes with retracting needle tips.

They also come with two doses of naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

• Police plan to carry fentanyl antidote as deadly drug hits Winnipeg

Mike Watts, the owner and manager of Brothers Pharmacy, said the rising use of fentanyl and carfentanilin Manitoba motivated him to get the kits off the shelves and into the community.

"(The Bear Clan) showed an interest in the kits and, really, harm reduction has been sort of our M.O. as of late," Watts said."It was just really important to get these naloxone kits out and as cheap as we can."

Brothers sells the kits for $15. Watts said other pharmacies price the kits at around $60.

On Thursday, 27 Bear Clan members received training, and 20 of them purchased kits.

• Deadly carfentanil means 'everyone is at risk' in Winnipeg
• Fentanyl deaths of sons bring 2 moms together to work for change

"I've been saying for a long time that addiction is sort of on the back burner as something that people don't want to talk about," Watts said.

"Unfortunately there's been a lot of lives lost. That's getting the conversation going. Hopefully their loss wasn't in vain, and people are starting to take notice."

Kits are also available for freetoopioidusersat StreetConnections onHargraveStreet.