Free Fentanyl Test Strips Available Around Duluth

DULUTH, Minn. — The Duluth Police Department is spreading the word about free fentanyl test strips that they say are designed to save lives.

The test strips can determine if any type of drug, liked cocaine, is laced with fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a powerful opioid that’s become one of the leading causes of overdoses in the United States and a very small dose of fentanyl can be lethal.

While police departments aren’t advocating for illegal drug use, they are trying to provide ways to avoid death while users navigate their addiction.

“Drugs today aren’t like they were 10 years ago, because nobody had this concern 10 years ago of teenage kids graduating from high school and they go out and party, and they might do cocaine, but now we have the concern of, they might do cocaine, and that cocaine is laced with fentanyl and then we have overdose events,” said Jess McCarthy-Nickila, DPD SURT Program Coordinator.

Test strips are available at the Rural AIDS Action Network, Harm Reduction Sisters, ClearPath Clinic, and at Duluth Courthouse in the Public Defenders Office.

“They typically come in packs together with your sterile water and the test strips, you put a little bit of sterile water, and then dip the test strip into that mixture and then just set it flat, wait, and it will give you the results right there on the strip,” said McCarthy-Nickila.

The Duluth Police Department says the tests strips are just one of many resources in harm reduction and safer drug usage, like the opioid-reversing medication known as Narcan.

So far in 2023, Duluth police have successfully used Narcan to save 33 lives.

Officials say test strips or not, drug users should always have Narcan available and a person with them.