Carfentanil deaths on the rise in Alberta
By Lethbridge Herald on September 17, 2025.
Alexandra Noad
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A sedative intended for large animals is believed to be the cause of a recent increase of opioid related emergencies, specifically to the Edmonton region.
According to the Canadian Center of Recover Excellence (CoRE) carfentanil can be up to 100,000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl, with microgram-level amounts causing life-threatening overdoses.
Rob Tanguay, senior medical lead of compassionate intervention at Recovery Alberta, says many drug users become highly tolerant to drugs, including fentanyl, and need stronger substances to get a high.
“The reality is, for a drug user who happens to be highly tolerant shifting to a more potent drug creates a sense of euphoria or high they couldn’t get before and it’s something that people will seek out.”
During the week of Aug. 25, Emergency Health Services (EHS) in Alberta responded to 321 opioid-related events, which was a 39 per cent increase from the previous week, and Edmonton accounted for 73 per cent of those calls.
While EHS numbers can vary and more calls don’t necessarily indicate more deaths, Recovery Alberta is concerned about carfentanil’s growing presence in opioid-related deaths.
From January to May of this year, 68 per cent of opioid deaths in Alberta involved carfentanil, which is a 10 per cent increase from last year.
However, in Edmonton the number of deaths involving carfentanil jumped from 17 per cent to 78 per cent.
There have not been any reported deaths form opioid overdoses involving carfentanil in Lethbridge since 2023. However, Tanguay says that doesn’t mean it has not already made it into the drug supply here.
“We’re worried what’s happening in Edmonton is (carfentanil) is replacing fentanyl and that’s extremely scary.
“Just because we don’t see it today in Lethbridge doesn’t mean it’s not there today and won’t be affecting us tomorrow.”
Naloxone can help during an opioid overdose involving carfentanil, but multiple doses may be needed to reverse its effects. Naloxone kits, available at most pharmacies, contain a single dose each. Opioid agonist treatment (OAT), such as Suboxone and methadone remain the standard approach and there are no carfentanil-specific treatments.
Recovery Alberta continues to expand OAT, which helps stabilize people, reduce cravings and prevent overdose.
Tanguay adds that OAT is a major part of the Compassionate Intervention Act, to help those who are suffering addiction to get the help they need.
“We will be doing it with peers and people with lived experience, we will be doing it with a medical approach, which will include medications, and we will be doing it with as much evidence-informed processes as possible.”
As part of this effort, advanced care paramedics in EHS’s Mobile Integrated Healthcare Program can give first-line OAT medication right in the community. Communities with Mobile Integrated Healthcare include Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Edmonton, Camrose, Peace River and Calgary.
An emergency response team is currently in place to monitor clients in and around Hope Mission’s Herb Jamieson Centre in Edmonton. The team of primary care paramedics, nurses and health care aides are responding to mental health and addiction crises including overdoses.Â
Tanguay encourages everyone to carry Naloxone kits and to have compassion toward the vulnerable population.
“People don’t choose to live homeless, people don’t choose to live in poverty, people don’t choose to live suffering with addiction, but we as a society have chosen to allow it and that has to stop.”
21-20
We have seen Carfentanil in Alberta for a few years, or it blended in with other drugs and it has been on the streets of Lethbridge off and on.
I agree with you when you state: “. . .but we as a society have chosen to allow it and that has to stop . . .”
Sleeping rough/in encampments, prostitution/sex trafficking,thefts, assaults, break and enters, property damage, leaving ‘bio-hazards’ in doorways, etc. all point to the drugs. Without the drugs, much of this would not be happening! The drugs cause the addiction . . . without the drugs you cannot get addicted. Treating addictions and in some cases the cause of the addiction such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s), PTSD, or other trauma is important in the treatment is an important part.
Giving them more drugs only enables and encourages drug use, as BC is doing.
Taking a hard stance on illegal drug use, enforcing drug laws already on available but are paused, increasing drug courts so those who chose to take treatment will not have a criminal record, and increasing treatment and recovery is the best path. We have to stop enabling to continue in their drug use!
I know too many people who have died with a few years of being on the streets and they would not seek help on their own, and if they did, once out of treatment, the street culture sucks them back into their old ways!
We need to end allowing them to hang out all day and night on our streets, prostituting themselves so organized crime and their ‘boyfriends’ get most of that money, and they get a couple of highs from it, or the people associated with the prostitutes who are always nearby, selling drugs, stealing, breaking into cars and businesses, damaging property, even burning buildings, and assualting people, as they slowly kill themselves in that lifestyle.
Once on the streets many only last a couple of years, even months and we allow them to live on the streets, watching them slowly kill themselves in a lifestyle we would not allow a dog to live! That is our society! We have lost the deifinition of what the term “humanity” means.
We have accepted it and allowed it become the norm! Winter comes and they get high and end up losing limbs . . . one person in wheelchair has lost part of his leg, an arm and now his remaining leg is bandaged and he is still on the streets in my neighbourhood. I pushed from a block the other day, and I believe he will not make it through this winter due to his current lifestyle.
The Shelter is a better shelter than other cities, the soup kitchen has 2 or 3 great meals made them daily, the food banks are available, and many other social services, but the drugs the lifestyle is preferred . . . BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT!
I have tried to stop this carnage, as have many others, but leadership says, it is happening in other cities so we just have to accept it! NO WE DON’T!
Because other countries are being torn apart by civil wars, does Canada just have to accept it?
Because the US is on the edge of civil war if certain events unfold, does Canada have to accept the fact we will have civil war?
What happens on our streets is what we allow to happen on our streets and it isn’t just killing people and destroying families, it is costing the taxpayer millions in this city alone . . . $10 million to $14 million annually alone just in the city of Lethbridge, which comes from your property taxes!
Carfentanil has been around for a few years now, along with another popular additive -xylazine, or the nickname the “Zombie Drug” due to its propensity to result in limb amputations, skin ulcerations, and rotting flesh.
There are no shortages of dangerous drugs added in an effort to give the user a more desirable high . . . addicts go for the drug with the biggest high, one that takes them out of the real world and into another realm!
We have allowed this take over our streets and take our children from our homes!