‘It saves lives,’ new program detects danger in GR’s illicit drug supply

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — This is the best — and healthiest — chapter yet of Nayrobis Garcia’s adult life, and she gives the Grand Rapids Red Project much of the credit.

“It means everything,” Garcia told Target 8, referring to her job as a harm reduction educator at the nonprofit agency near Madison and Hall. “It’s given me a lot. Every day it motivates me to keep on. They don’t judge me. They’re sincere and genuine people … and we do a lot for the community.”

Now, the organization, one of the first to offer a free needle exchange program in Michigan, is doing even more.

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Last spring, the Red Project became the first in the state to provide real-time, point-of-care drug checking through a process called Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, or FTIR.

From noon to four Monday through Friday, the nonprofit offers free drug checks at its outreach space at 1168 Madison SE.

The agency, founded in 1998, already distributes free Naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug, as well as fentanyl test strips.

But now, it’s providing on-demand, on-site drug checks so people know what’s in their supply before they ingest it.

The program is funded by a three-year, $1.1-million grant from the federal Bureau of Justice Assistance. Michigan State Police administers the grant dollars.

The Red Project gained approval from the city of Grand Rapids too, entering into a Memo of Understanding with the city’s police department.

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“Per the MOU, GRPD will ‘Operate in a cooperative manner with the Grand Rapids Red Project’s drug checking services,'” said a GRPD spokesperson, quoting the memo in an email to News 8. “It’s a one-year agreement, and it’s currently in the renewal process.”

The spokesperson went on to note, “At this point, there’s no reason to assume it won’t be renewed.”

Herman De Vries, who will soon become one of the Red Project’s drug checking technicians, explained the process, sitting at a laptop in the agency’s Madison Avenue building.

“What we can do is take very small samples, all we need is a grain of rice to a half grain of rice-size samples,” said De Vries. “We put it on this window, and we clamp it down, and we have software that can run a scan.”

Since April, the agency, operating the program at that point through word of mouth only, said it’s checked approximately 250 samples brought in for analysis by people who use illicit street drugs.

The agency said, on average, each sample contained three to five substances, though some had up to a dozen.

According to the results, a “significant portion” (80% to 100%) of the opioid samples contained fentanyl.

One of the deadliest synthetic opioids, fentanyl is fifty times more potent than heroin, and 100 times more potent than morphine.

It’s also responsible for the vast majority of accidental overdoses, many of which prove fatal.

The Red Project reported the drug check program also detected Xylazine or “tranq” in some samples.

Known as the Zombie drug, Xylazine is a horse tranquilizer that was never approved for human use.

It effects are so devastating, causing open, necrotic sores, that cities like Philadelphia have dispatched mobile wound care units to tend to tranq’s victims.

“People really have no idea what they’re using when they use opioids in the community,” said Steve Alsum, executive director of the Grand Rapids Red Project. “We’re all seeing right now in the community the devastation that’s caused by unregulated illicit substances … It’s really hard to protect your health if you have no idea what you’re putting in your body.”

Alsum calls critics’ concerns that harm reduction somehow promotes the use of illicit drugs “ridiculous.”

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“It’s not born out by facts,” said Alsum. “What the data actually shows is that programs like ours actually help people get into treatment when they’re ready for that … People have used substances since the beginning of time. We try to help people be safer, stay healthier, stay alive.”

For that, and so much more, Nayrobis Garcia is grateful.

She uses heroin herself and has taken advantage of the new drug checking service routinely.

“The things that come back are ridiculous, crazy,” said Garcia. “Xylazine, caffeine, sometimes even foot powder, Benadryl. Just crazy stuff.”

She said the program has also detected “super high” levels of fentanyl in her supply.

“It saves lives,” said Garcia. “This drug checking machine saves lives. It definitely does… I’m able to go out in the community to my friends who I use with and let them know what’s in it.”

She said it’s also helped her cut back.

Garcia said, at one point, she was using six times a day.

But knowing her supply is laced with dangerous contaminants has prompted her to reduce her use.

She said she’s down to one or twice weekly at this point, aided by medication-assisted treatment.

“It’s because of this drug checking machine because I’m like, I don’t, that’s not what I want in my body,” she said, referring to the Xylazine that’s contaminated the illicit drug supply. “I don’t want to look horrible. I don’t want to have sores. I don’t want to be in pain.”

She doesn’t want to die either. Garcia has lost more than a dozen friends to overdoses.

“I wish this drug checking machine was available when they were alive. I wish Narcan was available when they were alive. That probably would have saved them. They would have known that the substance had too much fentanyl, or that it wasn’t heroin at all.”

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