Chris Moyah understands Saskatoon’s drug crisis all too well. He sees it almost every day.
The volunteer at Station 20 West, a facility which houses a variety of health and public service providers, says it was early in the morning last week when two men came in to use the bathroom before leaving shortly later.
One of the men suddenly rushed back into the building pleading for help.
“I think he’s overdosing!” the man said to Moyah.
Moyah rushed outside to see a man unresponsive on the ground. He quickly gave him a nasal spray of naloxone to help reverse the effects of his overdose, but it didn’t seem to work. Moyah started to give the man chest compressions and asked his friend to take over so he could run inside, call 911 and grab another dose of naloxone.
“But at the same time, I have to use my other hand to keep giving him chest compressions, and I have to open another kit and I have to give — you know, it was overwhelming,” Moyah said.
“It was a scary experience, because I’m thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to lose this guy.’”
He says there’s a particularly bad batch of drugs circulating in Saskatoon right now that has all community members on alert.
The Ministry of Health issued its fifth drug alert since Feb. 26, alerting people of the higher risk of overdose death. In its latest update on Thursday, the ministry says the Saskatoon Fire Department responded to more than 180 overdose calls in that time span, including 37 in a 24-hour period Wednesday and Thursday.
“The drugs are not the same as they were before,” Kiyari McNab, the system navigator at Station 20 West said. “They definitely don’t smell the same and they definitely don’t look the same.”
McNab is a recovering addict who said she is scared for what’s happening right now. She has family members who are addicted to drugs and worries about them.
“A lot of my friends I know now, personally, probably have passed away because of drugs or are just lost in the streets because of it,” she said.
“It’s kind of sad to see that people will stay on the streets in order to do their drugs because they know that these housing places won’t accept it.”
The Saskatchewan Health Authority issued a news release Thursday afternoon reminding drug users to be cautious.
“No illicit drug is safe and anyone who uses illicit drugs is at risk of overdose,” the news release said. “Anyone who uses illicit drugs, or who has a loved one who uses illicit drugs, is strongly urged to take precautions.”
Free take-home naloxone kits are available at more than 450 locations across the province.
Another concern from Moyah is the increasing use of benzos, a sedative, as cutting agent for drugs sold as fentanyl. In combination, the benzos vastly increase the sedation from opioids, and naloxone cannot reverse their effects.
“That’s really scary because it puts the person more at risk of actually passing away,” Moyah said.
Moyah said many drug users, or relatives as he calls them, fear this recent bad batch of drugs.
McNab says there people as young as 13 living on the streets of Saskatoon, and she wants everyone to know no matter the age, each person caught in this worrying drug crisis has a lived experience.
“I really urge that people really go out and listen because it’s not what they always think it is,” she said.
