michael parker, executive director of the newo yotina friendship centre, said the city has seen a wave of overdoses in the past few weeks, some of which resulted in off-site deaths of clients who use the safe consumption site.
parker said there is a particular batch of drugs circulating that is being marketed as fentanyl, but also contains benzodiazepine. also known as benzos, this class of drug is typically used to treat insomnia or social anxiety disorders.
“from what we’re hearing and from what we’re seeing, that’s what’s been causing a significant number of overdoses,” said parker.
parker said while narcan can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, it won’t touch the benzo component.
parker said there have been three overdoses at the safe consumption site in the past three weeks, the most that the location has ever had on site.
bray said police are focused on high-level drug enforcement at the moment, rather than dealing with people for personal possession of drugs.
“we understand people that are possessing the amount of drugs that would just be for personal consumption are dealing with a health problem, and that’s the substance use disorder or the addiction that they have, and so handcuffs aren’t going to necessarily solve that problem. we have to find other ways to do it,” said bray.