Street drugs in the Lethbridge area have been found with increased doses of lethal opiates over the past two weeks, compounding an issue that has already become a city-wide epidemic.
Drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin have become even more dangerous than they were previously, due to the amounts of substances such as fentanyl becoming more and more prevalent.
This has resulted in increases of the rate of overdoses and deaths among drug users in Lethbridge.
ARCHES, Lethbridge’s safe consumption site, has seen an increase of overdoses by nearly 20 per cent since the more potent drugs have made their way into the city.
“We use the same precautions every day, no matter what’s going on,” says Stacey Bourque, Managing Director of ARCHES. “From time to time the community sees batches of drugs that are more potent than others and see increased overdoses.”
Though the alarming increase of overdoses is rare, it is not unprecedented in Lethbridge Bourque says. On the safe consumption site’s opening weekend, ARCHES saw 54 overdoses in a four-day period.
Bourque says ARCHES hasn’t pinpointed any trends concerning the more potent drugs, but mentioned clients are bringing in colours of substances that haven’t been seen before, such as red heroin.
Outside of the walls of the safe consumption site, the potent drugs have resulted in a busy week for members of the Lethbridge Police Service.
Members of the Downtown Policing Unit have been taking a proactive and aggressive approach to alleviate this problem.
“There’s only one room inside the safe consumption site where drug use is legal,” explains Ryan Darroch of the LPS. “We routinely arrest people using drugs in the alley (behind ARCHES), downtown, or anywhere else in our city.”
The arrests have been moving up the drug chain as well.
Last Saturday, the LPS arrested Cory Hagan on drug trafficking charges, after the accused was found downtown with multiple doses of purple carfentanyl that he was reportedly selling.
“From intelligence we’ve gained from the streets, the particular colour of this carfentanyl is one that has been linked to multiple recent overdoses,” states Darroch.
Though the police believe they have one of the area’s suppliers of the drugs, doesn’t mean that the problem is solved, says Bourque.
“I would encourage everyone in the community to carry a Naloxone kit and get trained to use it, so if you come across someone in distress from opioid use, you’re able to use it.”
Naloxone is a drug used to block the effects of opioids by sending oxygen to the brain.
The kits contain three doses of Naloxone, which can buy up to 15 minutes of time for emergency medical services to arrive. Also included in the kit are gloves, swabs and three syringes.
A Naloxone kit can be acquired at over 30 different pharmacies in Lethbridge and are free to anyone with an Alberta Health card.
If you would like more information on where you can acquire a Naloxone kit and potentially save a life, visit the Drug Safe page on the Alberta Health Services website.
