Calgary non-profits warn of rise in overdose calls, attribute it to contaminated drugs

Non-profit agencies in Calgary are sounding the alarm about a recent increase in drug overdoses, some deadly.

Earl Thiessen's road to recovery wasn't fast or easy.

"I ended up addicted to alcohol, pharmaceuticals, cocaine, crack for 20 years, which led me to the streets for seven years," he told CTV News.

Thiessen even overdosed twice.

But, nearly 16 years later, as head of the Oxford House Foundation in Calgary, he helps people get into peer-supported recovery housing.

In the past six months, Thiessen has noticed a troubling trend — fentanyl showing up in drug test results, even in those who haven't intentionally taken it.

"The crystal meth, the heroin, the cocaine are all being cut with it now and I think that is why there's such a dramatic increase in deaths all over the country," he said.

"There is no safe drug out there. Even marijuana is being sprayed with fentanyl now, so people are using for the first time, say crystal meth, and they're overdosing and they're young."

It's a concern shared by the Alpha House Society, which is responding to more overdose calls and says about one every two days is fatal.

"There is a toxic or, you know, a bad batch going around. It's very common in our work for that to fluctuate, so over the course of the year, we might see a number of different bad batches enter that space," said Shaundra Bruvall, communications and program manager for Alpha House.

"Ultimately, our response is to connect with clients and make sure that they are using as safely as possible."

The Calgary Police Service says street drugs in general are a concern.

"From a police perspective, there is no such thing as a safe or good batch of street drugs," it said in a statement to CTV News.

The problem isn't isolated to Calgary.

An intensive care physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton says he's increasingly seeing the impact first-hand.

"Every so often, we see spikes in an already escalating situation, and that usually is reflective of a new drug that has hit the street," said Dr. Darren Markland.

"A lot of our patients in the ICU end up dying as a result. Even if we get the heart back, the brain doesn't survive the insult."

Markland adds that addiction needs to be treated like a mental health and social issue, not a crime.

"The people that we end up saving from these horrible things end up going back into the same situations that got them there and they're definitely worse off for wear after that," he said.

Health Minister Jason Copping says the government is working to reduce barriers to mental health and addiction treatment.

"This is a concern for all of us in government and that's why we actually set up a separate ministry focused on this particular issue and investing hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to address it," he said at a press conference in Calgary on Monday.

Thiessen says he wants to see stiffer penalties for people caught dealing fentanyl, especially if it's been directly linked to a fatal overdose.

"People aren't thinking about the lives they're taking. They're thinking about taking, you know, the money," he said.