Three dead in SW Ontario from overdoses in two weeks: OPP

Provincial police are sounding the alarm after a recent rash of suspected overdoses across southwestern Ontario, including three deaths in just over two weeks.

Officers with the OPP’S West Region, a vast area encompassing Southwestern Ontario, responded to 12 overdoses between May 1 and 17, bringing the region’s total to 52 this year, police said Friday.

The three deaths — a Tillsonburg man, 21, and two Norfolk County residents, 37 and 41 — bring the region’s overdose death toll to 13 so far in 2020.

“These overdoses certainly highlight the fact that the misuse and abuse of controlled substances is dangerous and can be deadly,” a police release said.

On Thursday, the Windsor-essex County Health Unit had reported that during the week of May 12 to May 18, the emergency departments of local hospitals had at least 18 substance misuse and overdose cases.

Nine of those overdoses occurred over a 24-hour period on May 16. Fifteen of the cases involved opioids — and a dozen of those involved fentanyl.

Fentanyl, a highly addictive opioid many times more powerful than morphine, has been implicated in some of the recent cases and much of the opioid drug crisis that has swept Canada in recent years.

In response to the opioid crisis, public health officials have urged drug users to carry naloxone, an opioid overdose-reversing drug, in case they encounter a person suffering from an opioid overdose.

Police also remind the public not to be afraid to seek help in overdose cases, noting the OPP supports Canada’s Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act, which shields individuals possessing drugs at the scene of a drug overdose from charges.

“The OPP continues to work with community partners to strategically and collaboratively address the opioid crisis at the local and provincial levels by focusing on prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement.”

In 2019, there were 37 overdoses recorded in the OPP’S West Region, which takes in Chatham-kent, Brant, Bruce, Elgin, Essex, Grey, Haldimand, Huron, Lambton, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxford, Perth and Wellington counties.

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