In a bid to get the upper hand on opioid use like fentanyl, the North Bay Police held a drug education session where several of the agency’s partners talked about drug use.
Police Chief Shawn Devine says Detective Sergeant Jeff Warner talked to him about the rising use of opioids in the city adding this wasn’t an attempt on Warner’s part to put people in jail.
“He said people are dying out there and there’s the potential for more deaths,” Devine said.
“We need to put this information out there.”
In the last two months police say three sudden deaths have occurred in the city.
Devine says in recent years the number of cases where people overdosed and had Narcan administered to them in an effort to revive them as been rising at an alarming rate.
He says in 2015 the number of cases was 12, then it went up by two more in 2016.
However last year the cases jumped to 25 and so far this year there have been 24 instances where Narcan was applied in an overdose case.
“These drugs are powerful and have the potential to take lives or cause overdoes,” Devine said.
Constable Brad Reaume, who is with the Street Crime Unit, elaborated on the sudden deaths.
Reaume said two of the victims were in their 20s while the other person was in their 50s.
Reaume says the coroner is investigating the deaths but police strongly believe the cause is fentanyl use.
Although Reaume says he can’t talk about suspects, the police are looking for the people who provided the substances to the victims.
Reaume says in some cases a person using drugs doesn’t even know they’ve bought something that’s been laced with fentanyl.
In other words he says they were tricked.
Reaume adds what’s scary about the sudden deaths is the short time frame in which they occurred.
“This is extremely high for two months,” he said.
“If you look at this for the rest of the year, the numbers could increase significantly within the community.”
Fentanyl use has become so serious that Near North Crime Stoppers is offering one thousand dollars for July and August for information that leads to the seizure of fentanyl.
The reward also applies to tips that result in the arrest of fentanyl drug traffickers.