Alberta fentanyl deaths continue near peak rate

The pace of fentanyl fatalities in Alberta nearly kept to its record rate in the year’s third quarter, with 158 people succumbing to the synthetic opiate.

That compares to 167 in the three months previous to that and 170 in the year’s first quarter. Those numbers suggest the opioid crisis in Alberta might have a reached a static level, said the latest Alberta Health report on the issue.

“While it is too early to know for sure, this suggests overdose deaths may be plateauing,” it states.

“While fentanyl-related deaths continue to increase (over 2017), the increase appears to have slowed, and concurrently, non-fentanyl opioid deaths have decreased significantly,” it states.

In the same three months last year, from July through September, there were 143 such deaths and 687 in all of 2017.

Up until the end of September this year, there were 523 fatal opioid overdoses.

The Calgary area continues to record the largest number of the fatalities, with 64 from July to September.

That’s an average of 18.7 deaths per 100,000 people compared to a provincial average of 15.2, though it’s a number that’s fallen, said Alberta Health.

Calgarian Rosalind Davis, who lost her 34-year-old partner to fentanyl in 2016, said talk of a statistical plateau doesn’t reduce the heartache.

“It really continues to be devastating,” said Davis, a founder of the group Change the Face of Addiction.

She said possession of the drug should be decriminalized, something that could lead to safer use.

“We need to continue providing wider access to harm reduction and an access to a safe supply because there’s a contaminated product on the streets,” said Davis.

“We end up punishing people with a health condition ... it’s frustrating watching how slow the response has been.”

Fentanyl’s devastating toll on Calgary earned a mention in Ottawa Tuesday when the city’s acting police Chief Steve Barlow noted the drug’s escalating carnage during a hearing of the federal standing committee on health.

“Fentanyl has also been a big increase since 2013. Calgary is currently 242 per cent over the fiveyear average,” he said, referring to the number of fentanyl-related incidents emergency crews deal with.

The province’s efforts in combating the scourge aren’t enough, said Alberta Liberal Leader David Khan, who called for possessing small amounts of the drug to be decriminalized.

“We’re calling on re-directing those law enforcement and judicial resources to prevention and treatment,” he said.

“We’ve been in this 100-year war on drugs and it’s not working.”

Local governments, he said, should be given more tools to fight the problem since much of it’s being dumped on them.

And he said recent visits to Lethbridge revealed to him an alarming evolution of the problem where opioid laced with much more potent carfentanil is not only taking lives but making saving them more difficult by rendering the antidote Naloxone less effective.

“Two to four injections are needed to be used,” said Khan.

Since October, there have been about 100 overdoses on the nearby Kainai First Nation and at least four deaths.