(MassLive- Greta Jochem) Wearing gloves, Kyle Harrington watches results appear from an analysis of a drug sample. Harrington points to graphs on a computer screen that lead her to conclude the sample contained heroin, fentanyl, xylazine and lidocaine.
With a drug sample as small as a grain of rice, the machine at Tapestry Health’s Holyoke office can analyze what’s in it. That’s important at a time when deadly fentanyl and other drugs are cropping up in street drugs.
The results are recorded in an online public database, StreetCheck, which aims to help people better understand the illicit drug supply, reduce overdoses and improve public health.
Tapestry holds agreements with the three communities it operates testing in — Holyoke, Springfield and Greenfield — to protect them.
In the second half of last year, the program tested several hundred samples, said Harrington, Tapestry’s harm reduction training manager.
That number is likely to grow in the coming years because of a new state law.
Signed by Gov. Maura Healey late last month, a new law on substance use disorder includes provisions that legally protect those who test the drugs for harm reduction purposes. It also protects people who submit samples that are for personal use.
Now, Tapestry is looking to expand the services.
“We’re going to spend this next year working with local communities to work collaboratively to get this implemented in other places,” said Liz Whynott, director of harm reduction programs. It allows the organization to get real-time data of what is in the drug supply, she said.
“Harm reduction operates in a place where we wish that the issue with drugs or the overdose epidemic would end, but in reality, it’s not going to,” Whynott said.
“Everything kind of indicates that the instability and the erratic-ness of the drug supply is going to continue to change and quickly,” she said. “We have to be creative.”
Several years ago, Tapestry started the drug checking program and partnered with the Massachusetts Drug Supply Data Stream, part of Brandeis University’s Opioid Policy Research Collaborative.
The data stream program assists drug testing programs and runs StreetCheck, an online platform that lists tested samples and the results. It also analyzes trends in the drug supply.
On average, the platform logs about 2,000 samples a year, said Traci Green, a Brandeis professor and director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative.
The new law is “a godsend,” she said, and can help to expand services “dramatically” in the state.
Before, one could only do testing in locations where agreements with law enforcement were in place. Transporting the drugs to a different city where it could be tested involved taking a risk, Green said.
Now, harm reduction drug testing can be done in any location without a series of meetings and approvals, bypassing the bureaucracy, Green said. “We can provide the services when the flare-up happens or when something happens that people are worried about,” she said.
Mystery drug
For example, last year, medetomidine — an animal tranquilizer stronger than xylazine — was detected in the drug supply in the Worcester area, Green said. There were reports it could be in Springfield and Holyoke, but there wasn’t an agreement in place with law enforcement to test in Springfield, Green said.
The researchers got the permission they needed and found medetomidine in the Springfield supply, but it took weeks to learn that, rather than days, she said.
Green sees the change as a message from the state Legislature. “We got a clear mandate that this is important,” she said.
Sen. John Velis, D-Westfield, was chair of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery. “Fentanyl continues to be present in 90% of overdose deaths in Massachusetts,” he said in a statement. “At the most basic level, this is about expanding access to lifesaving tools at a time when the drug supply is more contaminated than ever.”
Velis secured funding for the mass spectrometer device used to analyze drugs at Tapestry in Holyoke.
At Tapestry Health’s program in the Valley, about 75% of samples are brought by someone after the drug was used. “It’s oftentimes motivated by ‘I had an overdose, or I’m having wounds, and I want to know if something in my bag is causing this,’” Harrington said.
The other quarter are samples submitted before someone uses them. Harrington hopes that percentage increases and that more people use the testing as a preventative measure.
Harrington and Whynott are hoping the law will make people feel more comfortable bringing in a sample.
“Because it’s so new, there’s oftentimes some cautiousness around, like, ‘Hand over my drugs to you? Is this okay?’ And just a fear of being criminalized for engaging with the service,” Harrington said.
The data Tapestry collects can help medical providers better understand the illicit drug supply and its impacts on people in their care.
This past summer, Harrington said they detected a chemical in the drug supply that caused cardiac-related problems, which matched up with what emergency departments were seeing.
“What they’re seeing in the ED can be reflected in or answered by some of what we’re seeing in the drug supply,” Harrington said. “Just being able to put our puzzle pieces together. I think it can have pretty profound effects on the way that we care for people who use drugs.”