PicoBlog

Crosses for Change, Paris Street, Sudbury

“The number of people dying from opioid toxicity increased by more than 500 per cent from 2017 to 2020, numbers show.” (Sudbury Star 09 December 2023.)

A 500% rise in deaths in just four years is alarming. It is a statistic that crys for action. North American drug addictions is a medical epidemic and this crisis has to be treated as such by all three-levels of government. But it isn’t.

The calls for additional millions of dollars to be spent on Safe Injection Sites and millions more to be spent on Safe Supply is not, and cannot be, the answer. This route will just make the crisis worse.

The questions that need asking are:
• Is the death rate still climbing?
• Has the death rate leveled off or has the rate declined?
• Where are the deaths occurring?
• How can we lower the death rate?

“In the four years between 2008 and 2012, the coroner reports 87 people in Sudbury died because of drug use.” (CBC News 15 January 2015.)

Back then in Sudbury, an average of 17.4 people a year died of overdoses. (87/5=17.4)

Using the data published by Public Health, Sudbury and Districts, between 2020 and July 2023 an average of eight persons a month died of drug overdoses, That equals an average of two a week. That is six times higher than 15-years ago.

Using a six-month leveling average, it shows that the rise in overdose deaths has peaked and may be going down slightly.

It is still too high—no doubt—but the death rate has stopped increasing.

The area covered by Sudbury and Districts Public Health

Sudbury and Districts Public Health Units covers a huge area; from Foleyet and Gogama to the north to Espanola and Manitoulin Island to the south.

We are not told.

All we know that they all occurred somewhere in this massive area but how many in each area, the Sudbury and Districts PHU doesn’t say.

It would be nice to have more detailed information.

This data is from montly reports published by the San Francisco’s Chief Medical Examiner’s office.

They list the number of deaths by gender, race, age, by fixed address, area where they lived and the areas in which they died.

They state number of deaths by:
Fentanyl 40
Methamphetamine 31
Cocaine 25
Medicinal opiods 6
Heroin 5

We don’t get to see details like this.

Strange how this question is so seldom asked.

Epidemics of any sort end only when the number of new cases declines. Curtailing the synthetic-drug crisis depends on deterring people from using them in the first place.

That’s a chore that would tax Hercules. It will take a very long time to implement and it is an extremely expensive enterprise. It must start with the federal government. Then the provincial governments needs to do far more than they are doing now. (Opening mental hospitals would be a good start.)

Only then will the work done by the municipalities show positive results.

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