By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Today in CanadaToday in CanadaToday in Canada
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
  • Home
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Things To Do
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Tech
  • Travel
  • Press Release
  • Spotlight
Reading: A volatile supply: how organizations are responding to constantly evolving street drugs
Share
Today in CanadaToday in Canada
Font ResizerAa
  • News
  • Things To Do
  • Lifestyle
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Travel
Search
  • Home
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Things To Do
  • Entertainment
  • Health
  • Tech
  • Travel
  • Press Release
  • Spotlight
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
Today in Canada > News > A volatile supply: how organizations are responding to constantly evolving street drugs
News

A volatile supply: how organizations are responding to constantly evolving street drugs

Press Room
Last updated: 2025/07/10 at 1:21 PM
Press Room Published July 10, 2025
Share
SHARE

Danielle Lake has been sober for about six months. After spending five years addicted to opioids and a year on the streets, she made the decision to stop.

“One day something clicked in my brain saying, like, I can’t do this anymore,” Lake told CBC News. “I wasn’t doing it for the high, I was doing it so that I wasn’t sick.”

Lake said she was lucky. She never overdosed.

“I’ve seen a lot of people pass away from this stuff and it’s like they say, a pandemic, and it’s crazy how many people just are dying.”

In 2024 in Canada, 7,146 people died from apparent opioid toxicity, and the unregulated drug supply is continually evolving.

“Often these samples have multiple fentanyl analogs, multiple non-medical benzodiazepines and sometimes veterinary tranquilizers all mixed together,” Richelle Booker, a forensic pharmacologist with the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT) said.

“In the past we would see just a single analyte or a single substance in a drug sample. Now there can be up to 10 or 12 pharmacologically active substances in a sample.”

Richelle Booker, a forensic pharmacologist with ALERT, demonstrates how drug testing strips are used to help identify what drugs are present in a sample. (Kory Siegers/CBC)

Booker is a recent addition to ALERT. Brought on in the spring of 2024 to help investigators looking at drug related offences, she also notifies groups involved with harm reduction of concerning discoveries.

She says the mixtures make it very difficult for people using substances to know how to safely dose. It also makes it hard for people who are responding to overdoses to know how to respond because naloxone won’t always work. And it complicates the treatment and recovery side if responders and health care teams don’t know what people are taking. 

‘All over the map’

In downtown Edmonton, the City Centre Medical Clinic treats people with addictions. Staff there have seen the unpredictability of the drugs that are on the streets right now. 

The most recent statistics released by the province of Alberta show 87 people died of opioid overdoses in Edmonton in March. That is the highest monthly number of deaths that the city has seen since the province began tracking the opioid crisis in 2016. 

A woman in a pink shirt stands in front of a yellow wall
Angie Adams, an outreach worker with the City Centre Medical Clinic, says some of the drugs on the street don’t respond to naloxone. (Samuel Martin/CBC)

Angie Adams works at the clinic as an outreach worker.

“Unfortunately, the contents of the unregulated drug supply are all over the map,” Adams told CBC News. She adds they have even been finding ketamine — a fast-acting anesthetic — in recent drug samples. 

“I’ve been hearing that even nasal naloxone, which is a lot stronger than just the injectable naloxone, that people are having to use multiple doses of that,” said Adams. “And that’s concerning in and of itself.”

Pharmacists Gaurav Sharma and Sidharth Arora run City Centre Medical Clinic. The facility has been helping people living with addictions and homelessness for about five years. They offer addiction treatment, mental health support and connect people to social workers to find stable housing and financial help.

“The illicit drug on the street is becoming very volatile,” said Sharma. “It’s a little challenging these days.” 

He adds that they are seeing many new analogs — which are drugs designed to be similar to prescription drugs, but differ chemically — in clients’ toxicology tests. Analogs like xylazine can have similar side-effects to opioids, like respiratory depression, but don’t respond to naloxone. 

2 men stand in a clinical room.
Gaurav Sharma, left, and Sidharth Arora run the City Centre Medical Clinic in downtown Edmonton. The clinic is focused on helping people with addiction and mental health issues. (Kory Siegers/CBC)

“We have seen other molecules like norfentanyl or other benzodiazepines which [we] have never seen, which is not approved by Health Canada,” Arora told CBC News.

Then there is the mixing of uppers and downers, where the side-effects of one differ from the other. 

“There’s two different holistic approaches for downers like fentanyl, opioid disorders,” said Sharma. “We go with the OAT (Opioid agonist therapy) treatment, but for the uppers there’s not an approved holistic approach yet.”

Pierre Chue works with the clinic and is a psychiatrist who has been treating patients in Edmonton for about 30 years.

“I think that’s also why it’s so complex,” said Chue. “What we’re dealing with today is not what we saw two years ago or five years ago or 10 years ago. So I don’t know whether we’re always able to keep abreast of what’s changing.”

For Angie Adams, her focus is keeping people alive.

“Regardless of what’s in the supply, they are unfortunately forced to continue using what’s available on the street without the necessary knowledge of what they’re putting in their bodies. And the best thing we can do at this point is just get that information out there to them to help keep them safer.”

A woman in a black dress sits in a chair
Danielle Lake is now in recovery after living with an opioid addiction for five years. She hopes to help others dealing with addictions. (Kory Siegers/CBC)

Danielle Lake is now building a future. She’s moved into an apartment and is planning to return to school to help others dealing with addictions.

“I’m able to see my kids because of me being sober, and that’s a blessing all in itself,” said Lake. “I can’t even imagine going back to that. It scares me actually.”

Quick Link

  • Stars
  • Screen
  • Culture
  • Media
  • Videos
Share This Article
Facebook Twitter Email Print
What do you think?
Love0
Sad0
Happy0
Sleepy0
Angry0
Dead0
Wink0
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You Might Also Like

News

What a Yukon hockey star’s draft to a U.S. college means for Canadian hockey

July 11, 2025
News

NDP to choose new leader in March following 7-month contest

July 10, 2025
News

Manitoba again declares provincewide state of emergency as wildfires force new evacuations for thousands

July 10, 2025
News

Trump threatening 35% tariffs on Canadian goods across the board

July 10, 2025
© 2023 Today in Canada. All Rights Reserved.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Advertise
  • Contact
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?