Number of overdose deaths in Ottawa up 75 per cent during pandemic

A major spike in drug overdoses in Ottawa last year has some who work with drug users suspecting the closure of the Canada-U.S. border may be part of the reason.

The latest data from Ontario's Chief Coroner, as provided by Ottawa Public Health, shows that suspected drug-related overdose deaths increased from 124 in 2019 to 218 in 2020 — a 75 per cent increase. Confirmed opioid overdose-related deaths in Ottawa approximately doubled in that same time period, from 65 in 2019 to 123 in 2020.

People who work with drug users in Ottawa began noticing what they describe as “a drastic increase” in overdoses around April of 2020.

“We were seeing much worse overdoses than we were used to, so people were going down so much harder and so much faster,” said Anne Marie Hopkins, manager of Ottawa Inner City Health's supervised injection site. “We quickly realized that this was truly terrifying.”

Hopkins suspects the closure of Canada's borders to non-essential travel may have reduced the supply of drugs or the ingredients to make them, forcing drug dealers to improvise and cook with whatever they could get their hands on, leading to a street drug supply becoming much more toxic.

“If it's not about the border, something changed in the drug supply to make it way, way worse,” said Hopkins.

A newly-released study of Ontario's opioid-related deaths during the pandemic may have found the culprit; a 10-fold increase in the detection of non-prescription benzodiazepines in opioid-related deaths.

The report, released Wednesday, May 19, on behalf of a group that includes Ontario's chief coroner and Public Health Ontario, says that a non-prescription benzodiazepine was detected in one in four opioid-related deaths during the pandemic, compared to one in 20 deaths, before the pandemic. The benzodiazepine group of drugs commonly detected during in post-mortem toxicology reports are not approved for use in Canada, which the report's authors say suggests that benzodiazepines are contaminating the unregulated opioid supply.

Both Hopkins and the authors of the report say drug users should have broader access to harm reduction services, including safer spaces to use drugs, access to naloxone and a safer supply of regulated drugs, in order to prevent more opioid overdose deaths.

“People can't recover, people can't meet their potential and people can't do positive things in their life if they're dead,” said Hopkins. “And addiction should not be a death sentence.”