New drug found in OD deaths in Manitoba

Drug overdose deaths in Manitoba touched almost every age category amid a near-record number of fatalities in January, when a new designer substance was detected in toxicology reports for the first time.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported 56 drug-related deaths in January, as per preliminary data released Tuesday — the highest monthly total since 57 deaths were reported in August 2021.

“That would be like two a day,” said Arlene Last-Kolb, the Manitoba director of Moms Stop the Harm, a group of parents whose children have died from drug poisonings. “It’s unreal now. Every single month we’re going up higher and higher.”

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Davey Cole, director of Manitoba’s only mobile overdose prevention site, which is operated by Sunshine House. “Each one of these numbers hits home.”

Addictions Minister Bernadette Smith said the number of deaths is “very concerning.”

“These aren’t just numbers. Those are people, they represent family members,” said Smith, who lost her father to a drug overdose 21 years ago.

For the first time, the office included a breakdown of deaths by gender and age range.

“This was introduced to further delineate the impact of substance-related fatalities in Manitoba,” director Kathryn Braun wrote in an email to the Free Press.

Of those who died, the office said 36 were male and 20 were female. By age, 10 people were in their 20s, 21 were in their 30s and 13 were in their 40s.

Eight people were in their 50s, and four were 60 or older. No deaths were registered in the 0-19 age range.

According to preliminary data, there were 445 drug-related deaths in 2023, down from 467 in 2022, but up from 432 in 2021.

Most drug-related deaths are attributed to “down,” a drug of many variants. It commonly contains benzodiazepines, which are depressants, as well as fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Naloxone, a medication used to temporarily reverse an overdose from opioids such as heroin or fentanyl, has no effect on benzodiazepines, the medical examiner wrote in an email to advocates from Moms Stop the Harm.

People who overdose on “down” that contains one or more benzodiazepines will be harder to rescue with Narcan, the medical examiner wrote.

“My concern is these drugs will keep developing, and we will not have the antidotes,” said Last-Kolb, whose 24-year-old son, Jessie, died from a fentanyl overdose in 2014. “Then what will we do?”

The medical examiner said a new designer benzodiazepine, called desalkylgidazepam, was detected in its toxicology reports for the first time. The drug was present in 18 deaths in January, preliminary data show.

“I’ve heard of it from other cities,” said Davey. “It’s been on some of our radars, but we haven’t come across it on (the mobile overdose prevention) site at all, that we’ve tested.”

Desalkylgidazepam was first identified by Health Canada’s drug analysis service in April 2022 in a sample seized by the RCMP in Drayton Valley, Alta.

In the ensuing year, the drug was found in 563 samples nationwide, said Health Canada.

Most were in powder form, also contained fentanyl and were submitted by police in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta.

Of those tested by Health Canada, three drug samples from Manitoba contained desalkylgidazepam in the year after it was first identified. Nine samples were reported between January and March of this year.

Michelle Kowalchuk, director of mental health and addictions at Resource Assistance for Youth, said community-based organizations such as RaY see the “human face” of the toxic drug crisis.

“A lot of people are impacted when somebody dies of a drug poisoning, just as there would be if they died of a different disease or in other circumstances,” she said.

Manitoba still has a shortage of services, especially for people seeking detox and treatment, said Kowalchuk.

“They just aren’t at the capacity of what we need them to be,” she said.

In its first budget, the NDP government allocated money for a supervised consumption site, treatment beds, sobering centres and harm-reduction efforts.

The supervised consumption site in downtown Winnipeg will try to connect clients with health care and other supports. Premier Wab Kinew has said it will not open this year.

“People in the field agree (the site) needs to move forward as quickly as possible,” said Kowalchuk.

Davey and Last-Kolb repeated calls for a safe-supply model as an alternative to the toxic, illegal supply.

Many people who use drugs do so in their homes, and not everyone will go to a supervised site, said Last-Kolb.

Smith said the government’s focus is setting up the supervised consumption site and getting drug-testing machines online.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca