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A Vancouver dollar store is selling fentanyl test strips for $1.25, something harm reduction activists say is a good idea.

Sarah Blyth, a volunteer at the Overdose Prevention Society, said the group discovered the selling of the strips, which resemble a take-home pregnancy test and are made by Rapid Self Test Inc., when a volunteer went to the Dollar Tree to buy cups.

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Blyth, a former Vancouver park board commissioner, said they tested several different types of illicit street drugs on Saturday with the dollar store kits and found that everything tested positive for fentanyl. That does not necessarily mean the dollar store tests are accurate.

She said that this was the first time she had heard of a dollar store selling fentanyl tests in Vancouver for such a cheap price. Coco Culbertson, senior manager of programs at the PHS Community Services Society, also said she believed it was a new item. A spokesman for the B.C. Centre for Disease Control had not heard of stores selling the kits, although, according to the company’s website, the tests are also available at Walmart and Pharmasave.