Five drug overdose deaths were recorded in Lethbridge in May 2022. (Photo: Moussa81 | Dreamstime.com)

By David Opinko

Five drug overdose deaths reported in Lethbridge in May

Aug 8, 2022 | 3:35 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The provincial government is reporting that Albertans continue to die as a result of illicit drug use.

The Substance Use Surveillance System report has been updated to include data up to May 2022.

Provincially, 116 people lost their lives due to drug overdoses in May, including five in Lethbridge and one elsewhere in the South Zone.

43 Lethbridgians have succumbed to overdoses in the first five months of this year, which is the most since Alberta began recording data in 2016.

In February alone, officials recorded 19 overdose deaths in Lethbridge, the most for a single month in the city on record.

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In instances where a person had died from substance use in 2022 in Alberta, fentanyl has been detected in the person’s body 95% of the time while methamphetamine has been found in 54% of cases and carfentanyl in 38%.

The AHS-operated Overdose Prevention Site (OPS) in Lethbridge was visited 12,157 times in the first quarter of 2022, which is a number that has been fairly consistent over the last year. Medical crews responded to 200 adverse events at the facility located outside of the Lethbridge Shelter and Stabilization Centre.

The OPS is still utilized far less than the former ARCHES Supervised Consumption Site, which reported a peak of 66,168 visits in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Men continue to be disproportionately impacted by drug overdose deaths, accounting for nearly three-quarters of deaths across Alberta. The most common age group is 35-39.