Achi news desk-
Opioid-related deaths in Canada doubled between 2019 and the end of 2021, with Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta experiencing a dramatic jump, mostly among men in their 20s and 30s, says a new study that calls for harm reduction policies targeting.
Researchers from the University of Toronto analyzed accidental opioid-related deaths between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2021 in those provinces as well as British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories.
Manitoba saw the sharpest increase in overdose deaths for those aged 30 to 39 – reaching 500 deaths per million population, more than five times the 89 deaths per million population recorded at the start of the period the study.
In Saskatchewan, the number of deaths for that age group nearly tripled to 424 per million, up from 146 per million, while Alberta’s rate increased more than 2.5 times to 729 deaths per million, up from 272 per million. a million. Ontario’s death rate reached 384, up from 210 per million.
British Columbia, which has been at the epicenter of the overdose crisis, recorded 229 deaths per million for that age group in 2019, climbing to 394 in 2020. All data for 2021 from that province’s coroner’s service was not available again when researchers completed their work based on information collected by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Nationally, the annual number of opioid overdose deaths increased from 3,007 to 6,222 over the three-year study period, which researchers note coincided with pandemic public health measures that reduced access to harm reduction programs and imposed restrictions boundary which may have increased the toxicity of the drug supply.
“In addition, for many, the pandemic exacerbated feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and loneliness, contributing to increased substance use globally,” they said.
The study was published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Senior author Tara Gomes said one in four deaths involved people in their 20s and 30s. More than 70 percent of the overall deaths were among men.
A spokesperson for the coroner’s service in British Columbia said that 78 percent of the people who fatally overdosed in that province between 2019 and the end of 2021 were men.
The sudden surge in fatal overdoses — especially among young adults in the Prairies — suggests states must act quickly, said Gomes, an epidemiologist who called for more harm reduction services including supervised eating sites.
“Being slow and not being as nimble as we’d like to be in our responses can have very devastating effects,” said Gomes, who is also lead researcher for the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network.
Bernadette Smith, Manitoba’s housing, addictions, homelessness and mental health minister, said the province plans to open its first supervised drinking site in Winnipeg next year and will also offer drug testing machines so people can check if their substances are illegal is poisonous.
“We came out of a previous government that didn’t take a harm reduction approach, unfortunately,” said the New Democrat, whose party defeated the Progressive Conservatives last fall.
“We’re working with frontline organizations because they haven’t been listened to or worked with for the last seven years in our state, which has been a real problem.”
Manitoba plans to train family doctors to treat addiction with medications including Suboxone and methadone, Smith said, noting that the doctors typically refer patients to detox for care.
“We’re creating a model so that people don’t have to go to a bunch of different places to get different services,” Smith said.
He declined to say whether Manitobans will have access to a safer prescription supply of drugs.
Tanya Hornbuckle of Edmonton said her son Joel Wolstenholme was 30 when he died in 2022. He became addicted to illegal substances at age 14, starting with cannabis before moving on to methamphetamine, cocaine and other drugs that were increasingly covered in fentanyl.
He also battled mental illness but getting help for that issue and addiction in one service was challenging, Hornbuckle said.
Wolstenholme tried several times to detox but there were never enough beds in a clinic where people had to line up at 8 am, he said.
“It would happen over and over and then he would call me. I went and stood in line or drove him there and stayed with him in the lineup. They wouldn’t get enough beds.”
Her son’s worries and addiction worsened when pandemic restrictions prevented her from going into an emergency room with him because she didn’t trust staff, Hornbuckle said.
On February 6, 2022, Hornbuckle went to her son’s home so they could cook together. He found him dead.
The Alberta government’s strategy of focusing more on abstinence-based recovery and treatment than harm reduction, mental health and housing is the wrong approach, Hornbuckle said, noting that her son slept in parks and abandoned houses for a time after losing his vehicle and ‘to flat to addiction.
Rebecca Haines-Saah, associate professor of community health services at the University of Calgary, called the overdose deaths of young people a tragedy, and said many more suffer from brain injury from toxic substances.
“Clearly, we have the wrong response. We don’t have the means and services available to keep people alive,” said Haines-Saah, who also called for more harm reduction services.
“We don’t have the full scale public health response that is required. We have no plans to fund anything related to what we would call harm reduction.”
Much of the current approach to addiction excludes a large number of recreational drug users, Gomes said. He said between one-third and one-half of the deaths in Ontario involve people without a diagnosis of opioid use disorder.
“So, just focusing on (residential treatment) is something that worries me a lot because we really need to make sure we have different options for different people.”
READ ALSO: Stories from the front lines of the overdose crisis
ALSO READ: Make overdose education mandatory in BC schools amid drug crisis, advocates say
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