Over 1,000 Albertans died from drug overdoses in 2021 so far

Nov 1, 2021 | 11:57 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – New numbers released Friday by Alberta Health show 1,026 Albertans died from a drug overdose in the first eight months of 2021.

There were 848 in the same span of 2020 — a record-breaking year — and there were 558 from January to August the year prior.

Of the 1,026 so far reported in 2021, 937 were from opioids.

The South Zone saw 92 drug overdose deaths between the beginning of January and the end of August this year, with 35 of those occurring in Lethbridge. Details on which other communities in the region were impacted are not available.

Provincially, fentanyl was detected in 82 per cent of suspected drug deaths while meth was found 55 per cent of the time. Cocaine and alcohol were present in 27 per cent of these incidents.

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Around three-quarters of all drug poisoning fatalities in Alberta were among men with the 35-39 age bracket being the most common.

In the South Zone, substance use resulted in 1,490 visits to emergency rooms in the second quarter of 2021.

Lethbridge’s Overdose Prevention Site was utilized 13,020 times in Q2 with EMS responding to 125 adverse events. During its most heavily-frequented period in Q4 2019, the now-former Supervised Consumption Site was used 66,168 times.

You can view the full Alberta Substance Use Surveillance Report here.

by David Opinko