Overdose deaths reach eight-month high
By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on November 7, 2023.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com
Three people died from overdoses in Lethbridge in August, the latest month for which provincial statistics are available.
Those deaths brought to 94 the number of people who have been killed from drug overdoses this year.
The eight-month total is the highest since the province began tracking overdose deaths since 2016.
The highest monthly number of deaths this year occurred in April when 21 were record. February, March and June all recorded 14 deaths while May and July had 10 each. January had eight recorded overdose deaths.
In 2022, the city had 53 recorded overdose deaths through August in comparison. In 2021, there were 31 recorded overdose deaths.
Medicine Hat also recorded three overdose deaths in August, bringing its total in the first eight months of 2023 to 27.
Red Deer had two overdoses deaths in August, bringing its eight-month total to 34.
Calgary, in the first eight months of 2023, record 458 overdose deaths including 51 in August. Its highest monthly total came in April with 76.
The provincial capital of Edmonton recorded 423 overdose deaths through August, including 65 that month which set a monthly high for 2023.
Provincially, Alberta recorded a total of 1,262 overdose deaths through August including 147 that month. The monthly high was 187 in April.
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Drug overdoses saw some of the highest totals this year across Canada!
BC with all of it’s harm reduction practises employed and it’s safe supply and other useless programs that only enable addicts to continue drug use also saw some of it’s highest overdose rates . . . after 20 years of harm reduction and seeing each year a rise in fatal overdoses, numbers of addicts, homeless and crime, you would think they would realize it just doesn’t work!
“Between January and July 2023, at least 1,455 deaths were attributed to toxic drugs, the largest number ever reported by the BC Coroners Service in the first seven months of a calendar year.”
Alberta, and Lethbridge are on the right track! Harm reduction doesn’t work!
Addicts are getting older. The natural consequence of continuing to put poison into your system is death. Also, there were more alcohol related deaths compared to drug, yet I don’t see newspaper articles about that.
“They” will continue down this path because it is too profitable and too well supported by the misinformed.
It will not be long before they can no longer blame Doctors for oversubscribing years back as they are dying out quickly. As the new addicts join their system it can no longer be someone elses fault, so the profitable will have to think of another excuse as to why kids are turning to hard drugs.
As soon as they run out of excuses, they will then suggest children be taken from homes to prevent drug abuse and we then come full cycle. Residential Schools Part 2
Sad part about it, the Indigenous will be part of it, and they cannot “for the life of me” understand its coming, no matter how loud I yell.
But I am done, nor going to do the I told them so, The Tribes had a chance to save their people but decided to go the easy route instead.
Numbers of deaths no longer matter, the “one is to many” crowd have lost the real reason why they are there! Its not to make money, its not to provide a home so they can die behind a closed door! Its not to kill the livelihoods of others so they can “serve them where they are”, its to “SAVE” LIVES”. The thing they preach, but don’t do!
As you say ewingbt we can put more and more lipstick on this pig, but its still a pig.Time to toss the Savin Lives Crowd and face the facts!
It is quite simple to solve. You separate or make it highly difficult for the addict to get to a dealer, or you make it so the dealer has great difficulty getting to the addict. A Novel idea is to put a facility on the 509 on the Bloods designated Casino property, but that would take an evaluation of whether they really want to save their people or have a Casino. It appears thats a difficult decision. You then get Lethbridge to cooperate, close all clothing, food, and shelter to all addicted (not homeless) then start Busing addicted to the facility. When they get off the bus in Lethbridge you follow them to their dealer, arrest the dealer until its over. The result, the dealers are found, arrested, and jailed. But golly that would require cooperation of the judicial system and some political BALLS! If you choose to do it your way, then please drop the BS line “Savin Lives” and use the new logo “Makin Money while looking concerned” because you are not saving lives, and never will! But it makes for good headlines! When the preaching is over and the “Savin Lives” group finally realize that addicts will go so far as to allow their body to rot on Tranq or Crocodil then maybe we will get somewhere, but the Lethbridge group thinks holding a hand or a tear in the eye is all it takes, so we continue to follow the old system. You can modify a bad system all you wish, but its still a bad system and will continue to fail, you will see that as time goes on. Until then we will lose thousands of people while “Savin Lives”
When this city shows dealers they cannot survive here without heavy incarceration, they will move on, and so will the addicts. Some may insist that burdens the next community, not really, we suck up to both now, ACROSS Canada, maybe its time to do the reverse, ACROSS CANADA! We had a chance to be the flag ship of this idea, but Casino’s appear to be too important, who would have ever guessed?
Of Course there is always Residential Schools Part 2, isn’t there? The ole Unfit mother, or unfit father, or unfit parents , or unfit environment etc etc??? Right? One thing you can always assure yourself, it will NEVER be the nonprofits fault, they were just tryin to help/make money!
The indigenous in this city still do not realize they are being setup and ole ‘whitey” is still driving this ship!
govt/control freaks – get out of the bodies of others. that said, get rid of our illegitimate drug laws, which are crimes against humanity. those laws make things worse, and there are many decades worth of evidence that demonstrate as much.
finally, as has been the case with liquor, it would be helpful to have available quality controlled drugs, as cheaply as possible: poisoning and overdosing related deaths and emergencies would be mitigated; and, there would be far less crime, if much of any, related to theft by addicts in order to cover the cost of ridiculously overpriced “black market” drugs, which are only so expensive because they are deemed illegal.
but, hey, why not force folk into rehab, even though many do not have near the capacity to become adapted, contributing members of society…enough forced rehab should surely get them a good hair cut, a nice second hand charity shop suit, and a high paying job in finance or politics, right?