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Between early in the morning on Canada Day and mid-afternoon on Thursday, Regina police responded to seven calls about drug overdoses — and six of them ended up being deadly.
In fact, a police team was on scene at the seventh as acting police chief Dean Rae was speaking to media.
According to Rae, police believe the four that happened after midnight Thursday are likely related due to the proximity of where they were found.
“It’s been talked about that this is an epidemic and I would agree. This is something that’s having a great impact on our community and we need to work with all partners to try to have some type of an impact and to stop this from happening further,” Rae said during a media conference.
Four of the overdoses are believed to be related to fentanyl; for the other three police aren’t sure yet. Rae said police are attributing the rise in overdoses this year to the increase in fentanyl.
“It’s the increased presence of fentanyl in our community, the ability for people to buy fentanyl and access it, and that’s what is creating a lot of our overdoses at this point in time,” Rae said. “It’s quite concerning for us. This isn’t just a police problem, this is a community event.”
He said there are some concerning drugs in the community right now.
“I believe that they brought in some drugs that were laced with something. Whether it was fentanyl or another drug, it has caused deaths,” said Rae.
Since Jan. 1, there have been 451 overdoses recorded in Regina, 175 of which police were called to. Not every overdose is reported, so police believe the actual number is higher.
Police have administered Narcan on 36 different occasions. There have been 24 deaths related to drug overdoses in Regina this year.
Rae said police haven’t had a series of deaths like this in quite some time, if ever. He said it’s concerning when he sees this happen.
“We do our investigations and we’ll do them well, but it’s about bringing those other partners and those other aspects of our community that are impacted together to work on this. That’s the challenge we’re faced with right now,” said Rae.
Rae said police have seen exponential growth in the number of overdoses, starting in 2018 with the increased presence of fentanyl in the community.
According to Rae, safe consumption sites are something the police would review, but he couldn’t say on which side they would ultimately come down on.
“Anything we can do to minimize risk for those individuals, whether it’s a safe consumption site or other types of programs, is something that we would be supportive of,” Rae said.
Police are reminding people there aren’t any repercussions from police for calling them when there’s an overdose happening.
Rae also took the opportunity to remind the public what an overdose can look like, encouraging people to call police or EMS if they see someone who has difficulty walking, talking or staying awake, if they have blue lips or nails, very small pupils, or they’re cold and clammy.