Drug Poisoning in Edmonton
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
In 2025 in Edmonton, one person died from drug poisoning every 11 hours. Over the past decade, more than 5,000 people have died from drug poisoning in our city.
People are dying from accidental drug poisoning across Edmonton - people with homes and without, people with jobs and without, people inside and outside.
People who have used substances for years and people who are using them for the first time.
The severity of this crisis is driven by an unregulated, toxic drug supply that is increasingly potent and unpredictable. People may not know what has been mixed into the substances they are taking or how strong they are.
In 2025, Edmonton EMS responded to more than 7,000 opioid-related events, and opioid-related emergencies accounted for over 6,000 Edmonton Zone hospital visits and almost 1,900 hospitalizations, further straining our health system.
The public understanding of the crisis is distorted: most coverage focuses on open-air substance use by those most visible and marginalized. But in 2025, over half of unintentional opioid poisoning deaths in Edmonton occurred in private residences.
The drug poisoning crisis affects everyone, but it does not affect everyone equally.
From the outside, living with a severe substance use disorder can look incomprehensible, looking only at the enormous costs of someone's substance use. But drugs provide something: they can dull physical pain, they can dispel traumatic memories, anxiety, or overwhelming emotions. They wake most of us up in the morning. They can provide energy, confidence, relief, pleasure, a sense of safety and awareness, or simply a few hours in which life feels worth living.
People who use substances and experience deep poverty, homelessness, and housing precarity form a substantial percentage of those we have lost in our Boyle Street community. They are exposed to many overlapping harms, because homelessness and poverty add risk to almost everything.
Those we serve are not only dealing with an unpredictable drug supply, but also a lack of shelter and the negative health effects of exposure. Many live with physical health conditions that greatly affect their mobility and quality of life, including amputations from frostbite, chronic wounds and infections, and the cumulative physical toll of living outside for years.
People use substances to manage physical pain when they cannot access adequate pain treatment. People self-medicate mental health conditions. People try to cope with trauma while living in an environment that can itself be traumatic.
Something can be harmful and still be the best of a bad set of options.
The vast majority of those we serve have experienced extraordinary amounts of physical and emotional pain long before they arrive at our doors. Most grew up within the child welfare system, and many had bad experiences before it or within it. 76% of those we serve who use substances live with serious mental health conditions, including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and PTSD. 55.5% have learning disabilities, developmental conditions, and other conditions like fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), previous strokes, and traumatic brain injuries.
For many Indigenous community members, these experiences are part of a much longer history.
In a 2023 survey of people who use drugs in central Edmonton, nearly 69% of participants identified as Indigenous.
The continuing harms of colonialism are also seen in Canadian statistics of poverty, homelessness, family separation, incarceration, discrimination, and the disproportionate number of Indigenous children who interact with the child welfare system. Indigenous children are only 7.7% of Canadian children under 15 but 53.8% of children in foster care.
Trauma does not inevitably cause addiction, and Indigenous people are not defined by trauma. But when harm has been deliberately concentrated across generations, its consequences are also concentrated. And trauma is a leading cause of substance use.
For many of the people Boyle Street serves, life has also accumulated additional barriers.
Even in the absence of substance use, those barriers remain: lack of housing, lack of job prospects, chronic pain, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, lost loved ones. Years of seeing their friends overdose, of being the first responders to drug poisonings. Education, income, healthcare, relationships, networking opportunities, and a sense of purpose do not magically appear to fill the void that was medicated by substances.
We practice the full spectrum of harm-reduction because we believe it is the best way to support those who access our services.
We all practice harm reduction: condoms, designated drivers, helmets and life jackets, seatbelts, safety vests, buying cannabis from a dispensary, and many more.
Naloxone is harm reduction for people who use drugs. So are supervised consumption services, safe supply initiatives, drug checking, and safer-use education. These interventions reduce the chance that someone will die or suffer further harm while they are using substances.
Harm reduction keeps someone alive today. But it cannot, on its own, repair the structural conditions that made drugs one of the best options available to someone in the first place.
Harm reduction, treatment, and recovery work together to improve everyone’s quality of life and meet their individual health needs.
We need to build a community together in which people have better options, and in which people who use substances still have access to housing, healthcare, relationships, purpose, and dignity. We need a community that places reconciliation at the forefront of its priorities.
At Boyle Street, that means meeting people with dignity, building relationships, and creating pathways to miyo-pimâtisiwin - the good life.
Naloxone Training
If someone - your brother, your friend, a stranger at a party or on the street - is unresponsive, breathing very slowly, or not breathing, call 911. If the person is unresponsive but you are unsure if they have overdosed, you can still administer the naloxone without risk of negative consequences. Naloxone temporarily reverses the effects of opioid poisoning and can keep someone alive until emergency medical care arrives.
You do not need to work in healthcare or outreach to carry it, and it is freely available from any pharmacy, no questions asked.
In Edmonton, friends, family members, neighbours, and people who use drugs themselves reverse overdoses every day. The more people who know how to recognize an overdose and use naloxone, the more chances someone has to survive one.
One year ago, a few of our administrative staff were getting bánh mì at Van Loc. As they sat down, they saw someone down the street giving CPR. Because of their existing relationship with Van Loc - it is a lunch favourite - they knew Van Loc carried naloxone kits, so they asked for a kit and ran to assist.
The patient wasn't breathing and their fingertips were blue. The person giving CPR - the patient's friend - had given naloxone but estimated it was five minutes ago. One staff immediately administered another dose of naloxone, while the other staff called 911.
They set a timer and followed the 911 operator's instructions. After three minutes they gave more naloxone - the patient gasped and started shallow breaths. EMS arrived right after and took over care, taking them to the hospital.
The first person on the scene was the patient's friend, giving CPR. They were the first responder, and their efforts saved their friend's life.
The administrative staff knew what to do because of Boyle Street's staff training and the culture of our Streetworks health services staff, who always make time to train everyone on when and how to use naloxone.
The staff knew Van Loc carried naloxone kits because of their existing relationship as our neighbours.
And, of course, EMS responded with speed and skill.
On September 17, Boyle Street Community Services will host a naloxone training where participants can learn how to recognize and respond to an opioid poisoning and how to use naloxone.
References
Morris, H., Cottrell-McDermott, C., Hyshka, E., Taylor, M., Bulut, O., Connolly, D., Piggott, B., Staines, A., Issa, T., Gehring, N., Collins, Z., Raza, A., & Salvalaggio, G. (2024). Understanding the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people who use substances in Edmonton’s inner city: Final report. Inner City Health and Wellness Program. https://www.ichwp.ca/s/PWUD-Covid-Final-Report.pdf
McBeth, R., Ajani, A., Auger, S., Campbell-Scherer, D., Dong, K., Evans, T., Hyshka, E., Jabbour, B., Piggott, B., Sandberg, C., Srinivasan, C., Taylor, M., Twan, S., Umpherville, L., Varewny, V., & Salvalaggio, G. (2026). Responding to polycrisis through health systems innovation with people who use drugs: Final report. Inner City Health and Wellness Program. https://www.ichwp.ca/health-system-innovation-for-pwud
Hahmann, T., Lee, H., & Godin, S. (2024). Indigenous foster children living in private households: Rates and sociodemographic characteristics of foster children and their households. Statistics Canada, Indigenous Peoples Thematic Series. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/41-20-0002/412000022024001-eng.htm
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