As Winnipeg faces a worsening drug crisis, more people are looking to be prepared in the event of an overdose emergency, says a local community safety consultant.
More than two-thirds of attendees at a recent opioid response training session weren’t first responders, but average citizens, including students and volunteers.
Consultant Victor Mondaca, who led the session, says that’s a welcome trend.
“We’re offering the training specifically because we are seeing a very toxic drug supply,” he said, pointing to the recent appearance of medetomidine, a powerful animal tranquilizer, in opioids in the city.
“We need to be very, very cautious,” said Mondaca. “The more folks that we can get trained, and the more individuals that are out there looking for individuals, the better the outcome will be.”
A recent CBC analysis of 15 years of data shows the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service responded to 810 opioid patients in April alone — more than three times as many as in April 2025.
Mondaca is co-founder of Nahuen Consultations, a community safety consultation group that hosted a Tuesday training session at the Transcona Library in partnership with Urban Wagons, a volunteer patrol group operating in downtown Winnipeg. The session was the second in a program Nahuen began in April to offer opioid overdose response training to the public.
Mandy Mondaca, Victor’s wife and the business’s co-founder, said Nahuen began offering the program in response to demand from residents. In addition to front-line workers, it’s drawn business owners, parents, and other community members, she said.
The demand reflects how visible the crisis has become, said Victor. But he appreciates how the public has also stepped up in response.
“In the last training that we did like this, we had 37 individuals sign up and be trained in naloxone response.… That just shows that Winnipeg does show up for Winnipeg when it needs it.”
Lisa Morantz, the director of operations for Urban Wagons, said her group is seeing more requests from people they help for naloxone kits, which she always carries on a walk.
She also said many people are also now more comfortable administering naloxone — a medication that can reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, administered either as a nasal spray or an injection.
Though she’s done previous training, repeated sessions are helpful to feel comfortable administering naloxone, said Morantz. Once, when asked to provide the medicine, she couldn’t remember how to open the vial.
“So when the person was having a drug poisoning, I just ended up stabbing them over and over again on their leg and they woke up. But at least I had that needle,” she said. “If I didn’t have that needle, I don’t know if they would have woken up.”
However, naloxone may not be effective for someone who has overdosed on non-opioid drugs, such as tranquilizers.
Ryan Frick, the communications director at urban wagons, said Tuesday’s session was helpful because it addressed the issue of naloxone and tranquilizers.
“It’s scary, because you could be reviving someone and then they just don’t wake up because of the tranquilizer, and you don’t know if it’s helping,” he said.
A part of the solution
Jamil Mahmood, the executive director of the non-profit outreach group Main Street Project, said overdose response training plays a valuable role in destigmatizing the drug crisis.
Some substances, like alcohol, are accepted based on societal norms, he said, and “if we treated all substances in a similar way, I think it would be a much better place.”
Frick said having more people who can administer naloxone improves the odds someone overdosing will survive, and potentially choose recovery.
But Mahmood says that kind of training is only one part of the solution.
“A lot of what we’re doing is … Band-Aid type solutions. And those are really important because they’re saving lives. But that can’t be all we do, right?”
He wants to see more pathways into treatment so that the opportunity is there for those who are ready.
Nahuen Consultations eventually hopes to make its training sessions free, Victor Mandaca said, but for now, he’s happy with the response they’re getting.
“It would be nice to have some level of funding or some spaces available” from other organizations or government, he said.
“But at the same time … we need to be more capable of responding to these things as general public. So I think the more of these sessions we do, the more the closer we get to that goal.”
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson said the province is working with organizations like the Manitoba Harm Reduction Network and St. John Ambulance to provide overdose response training, and has recently announced nearly $7 million in funding for drug treatment and harm reduction, including naloxone training.
A group that offers naloxone training says it’s seeing increasing interest from Winnipeggers who want to learn how to respond to a drug overdose. They say as the city faces a drug crisis, it’s important for the public to know how to react to an overdose.
