Opioid overdoses killing two people in Ontario each day

More than two people each day are dying of opioid overdoses in Ontario, a grim tally that underscores soaring use and abuse of the potent narcotics, researchers say.

The rate of opioid-related deaths in the province has almost quadrupled over the past 25 years, skyrocketing to 734 in 2015 from 144 in 1991, says a report published Thursday by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network.

“What we also found really interesting was the types of opioids involved in those deaths and how those have changed over time,” said lead author Tara Gomes, a scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Prior to 2012, oxycodone was the most common culprit in opioid-related deaths. But with the introduction of a tamper-deterrent formulation of the drug that year, oxycodone’s involvement in these deaths declined, while other opioids were found to be increasingly implicated in fatal overdoses.

“What we’ve seen is that fentanyl, hydromorphone and even heroin involvement in opioid-related deaths really started to rise at that point in time,” said Gomes. “That’s a bit concerning because it means that simply changing access or the formulation of one type of opioid isn’t actually leading to the ultimate goal of reducing the rate of opioid-related deaths in the province,” she said. “It’s simply shifting people between the types of opioids like fentanyl and heroin.”

Fentanyl’s contribution to opioid-related deaths soared by 548 per cent between 2006 and 2015, and it is now the most common cause of lethal overdoses among this class of powerful painkillers. Fentanyl can be obtained in both prescribed patches and illicitly manufactured pills, but the latter have only been around for the past couple of years.

Hydromorphone is the second most commonly identified drug in Ontario’s rash of overdose deaths — with its involvement climbing by 232 per cent between 2006 and 2015 — while heroin’s connection to opioid-related fatalities jumped by 975 per cent, despite small numbers overall.

The report, based on 1991-2015 data obtained from the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario, shows that opioid-related deaths often involved other drugs that could have contributed.

The report also shows that more than 80 per cent of all opioid-related deaths in 2015 were accidental, while the remainder were suicides. A breakdown of accidental deaths by age showed that almost 60 per cent occurred among youth and younger adults, aged 15 to 44, and more often among males.

Almost 80 per cent of opioidrelated suicides occurred among adults 45 years and older, with women outnumbering men.