As we have seen over the course of this year, the opioid crisis that we have read and heard about in larger communities has indeed arrived in Grey-Bruce.
I have been growing more and more concerned with the increased number of reports I have been receiving about overdoses, some fatal, that have occurred in our local area over the past few years, and the problem only seems to be growing.
Grey Bruce Public Health has now issued 21 Opioid Alerts in 2024, which is more than the 18 alerts issued throughout all of 2023. Last week was the sixth time this summer that Public Health has been notified of a fatal opioid poisoning in Grey-Bruce.
“This latest series of local drug poisonings once again highlights the increasing toxicity and volatility of the unregulated drug supply in Grey-Bruce and how important it is for people who use illicit drugs to follow harm-reduction strategies before each dose,” noted Grey Bruce Public Health in their most recent press release announcing the most recent overdoses in the two counties.
While opioids come in many forms, fentanyl is the drug that currently poses the most danger to those who have become addicted to opioids. It is a powerful drug that can result in a powerful addiction, causing users to use more and more in order to feed the brutal addiction that grips many who fall down the opioid rabbit hole.
The opioid crisis is not a Grey-Bruce issue of course, it is a nation-wide problem, and it is an issue that has become significant enough that the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) issued a 14-page report in July (The Opioid Crisis: A Municipal Perspective, July 2, 2024), outlining the impact of the crisis on municipalities across the province.
“For nearly a decade, the opioid crisis and the increasingly toxic drug supply have devastated communities across Ontario. In 2023, more than 2,500 Ontarians died due to opioids, in communities big and small, rural and urban, northern and southern. These losses and resulting impacts on families, friends and communities are a tragedy,” reads the opening paragraph of the report. “In addition to its human toll, the opioid crisis has had a profound social and economic impact on municipalities across Ontario, including significant budget pressure on key municipal services, like emergency response, homelessness prevention and affordable housing, and public health services.”
It is a growing problem that is impacting an ever-increasing number of families, but potential solutions can be complex, and can spark heated debates, as noted in the AMO report.
“The public and communities are understandably frustrated by the lack of a real plan to address what has become a humanitarian crisis in Ontario. This is contributing to increasingly divisive political rhetoric around these complex challenges that distract from the lack of action and lead us further from real solutions. The path forward on the opioid crisis cannot be a debate between public safety and public health – it must be a balanced approach,” the report noted.
My own experience with opioids is limited to prescriptions from my doctor more than a decade ago for pain management. Fearing the potential for addiction, I ensured that my time using opioids for pain was brief, lasting only long enough to find alternatives, that, while perhaps not as effective, would at least give me peace of mind, given that I am aware that I have an ‘addictive personality’, that I would not find myself spiralling into addiction when all I wanted was relief from some extreme pain.
My fear of the power of these drugs and the potential for addiction was all that saved me at the time from the horrors that can accompany an opioid addiction, as for many the road to addiction began with doctor-prescribed medications.
Those fears that I had more than a decade ago turned out to be warranted based on the constant news reports we read and hear from across the province these days. With each new day comes new overdoses, and more fatalities.
Many of course would like to see the problem solved, but as I noted previously, that is a tall order, as complex issues like the opioid crisis can be a challenge to solve.
“As outlined in previous AMO reports on the opioid overdose emergency and the need for an integrated approach to mental health and addictions, the root causes of the opioid crisis are multi-faceted and compounded by decades of provincial failure to adequately invest in social systems that support income security, provide deeply affordable housing, and prevent or address mental health and addictions. A complex challenge like the opioid crisis cannot be solved by simple, short-term, stand-alone solutions. To meaningfully address this crisis, action is needed across a whole continuum of interventions, including investments in prevention, treatment, and enforcement/justice systems, and harm reduction. These actions are inherently connected and supportive of one another,” noted the July report from AMO.
In their conclusion to the July AMO report, it is noted that there are many factors that have led to, or contributed to, the opioid crisis that we are experiencing today.
“The opioid crisis is complex and interconnected with income insecurity, the lack of deeply affordable housing, inter-generational trauma carried by Indigenous communities, and insufficient investment in the broader mental health and addictions supports,” the report noted. “A complex problem requires a multi-faceted strategy that addresses the social determinants of health, provides long-term investment into prevention, and appropriately supports treatment, enforcement and harm reduction approaches.”
The problem is real, and it is impacting our communities here in Grey and Bruce counties, and small, rural, municipal governments are not equipped to handle it alone. If the opioid crisis is to be solved, it will require the efforts of all levels of government.
We can’t simply wait for a solution to be found, however, as the opioid crisis has become part of our new daily reality, so it is important that those who use drugs like fentanyl can be as protected as possible.
“Grey Bruce Public Health encourages people who use unregulated drugs to use drug test kits in conjunction with other harm-reduction strategies. Test kits for fentanyl, benzodiazepines, and xylazine are available from Public Health and several community partners, including Safe ‘N Sound, SOS, Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Grey-Bruce, and the South East Grey Community Health Centre,” Grey-Bruce Public Health advises in each of the far too many press releases they are forced to issue with each new series of overdoses. “The SOS mobile team now offers detailed drug-checking services, providing information about what substances are present in a sample and how much. The team can be reached at 519-379-8743 from Monday to Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
