It’s the toxic drug supply; an epidemic within the pandemic. Never before in the history of Canada have more people died from drug overdoses. It’s a health emergency that is being fuelled by the pandemic.

The very measures that are meant to keep us safe from the virus are having unintended consequences on those struggling with addiction and mental illness. Lockdowns mean isolation, lost jobs, and difficulty accessing services. The shutdown of the Canada-U.S. border has disrupted the illegal drug supply, so what is on the street is more contaminated than ever, as dealers mix in other ingredients to stretch their supply.

In the first nine months of 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic, nearly 1,700 people died from overdoses in Ontario alone. That’s a 55 per cent increase over last year. In Alberta, during that same time period, more people died from overdoses than from COVID-19. 

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