Overdose deaths may have doubled since 2018, coroner's report suggests

Before Mitchell Sveinbjornson became one of the numbers, he was a loving father with a well-paying job in a small Saskatchewan town.

He is one of 397 people believed to have died of an overdose in 2020, according to the latest report from the Saskatchewan Coroners Service that indicates the number of fatalities may have doubled since 2018.

Sveinbjornson's mother, Colleen Larocque, said she wants him to be remembered as more than a person who used drugs, as more than a statistic, and as a reminder that overdose can affected anyone, anywhere.

“It can be your son, it could be your nephew, it could be your dad. All it takes is somebody making a dumb decision. One poor decision,” Larocque said.

Overdose fatalities have risen sharply in Saskatchewan since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted illicit drug supply lines and made a toxic supply even more dangerous.

Marie Agioritis, a member of the organization Moms Stop the Harm, lost her son Kelly to an overdose in Saskatoon six years ago. She's frustrated by what she says is a lack of urgent government action to prevent death.

“The reasons are the reasons, but there's no excuse for why we are seeing what we're seeing,” she said.

The provincial government has pointed to increased investment in treatment services — a record $435 million was earmarked for mental health and addictions in the last budget — but Agioritis said those investments aren't having enough impact.

“I can tell you how much I spend of my family's budget, and telling you how I spend is no representation of how well I'm managing my money,” Agioritis said.

The coroners service divides deaths into “confirmed deaths” and “suspected deaths,” where evidence points to an overdose but an autopsy is not complete. Of the 172 deaths in 2020 confirmed so far, 82 were in Regina and 33 were in Saskatoon.

Deaths have also been recorded in smaller communities. Sveinbjornson lived in Churchbridge, a southeastern Saskatchewan town of fewer than 1,000 people. He had a job in potash mining, two children and a loving extended family.

In late August, he took what he believed was cocaine at a party. The next morning, he was gone. A toxicology report later found methamphetamine, fentanyl, carfentanil and cocaine in his system. He was 29.

Larocque said he was “zero to 60” — energetic, hardworking and unapologetically himself. He was proud of his Nordic heritage, and when he died his family gave him a Viking funeral, casting part of his ashes off on a flaming raft.

“He just had it together. He was the kid who had it together and was doing really well,” Larocque said.

It's a sign that the overdose crisis is not a “city problem,” she added, noting communities like hers have paltry access to mental health resources and little education around drugs or how to respond to an overdose.

“There's no safe consumption site in rural Saskatchewan,” she said.

Stigma surrounding drug use in the region runs deep. Larocque said she wants to make sure people in her community understand the reality of the situation so they don't have to endure her family's loss.

“People don't understand out here. And that's the part that I'm really struggling with,” she said. “People always think `it can't happen to me.' “

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It can be your son, it could be your nephew, it could be your dad. All it takes is somebody making a dumb decision.