Photo courtesy of Northreach

By Liam Verster

Tracking trends of substance abuse deaths

Northreach Society in Grande Prairie sees benefits of new substance use updates

Dec 23, 2020 | 11:53 AM

Alberta’s newly announced reporting system intended to provide more frequent and timely updates on substance abuse and related deaths will be beneficial, according to the Northreach Society in Grande Prairie.

The province has changed the delivery of data from quarterly to monthly, and Lindsay Loset, the Community Based Health and STTBI Program Manager for Northreach, says this change will help the Society keep up to date on figures and trends in the community.

Related Article: Grande Prairie sees 22 opioid deaths in first 10 months of 2020

Loset also says this could help with preparation of supports and services, as illicit drugs tend to move from south to north and usually impact other communities before reaching Grande Prairie.

“Just because of the way that street drugs seem to flow up through the province, there is a little bit of a correlation of increases of drug toxicity in B.C. to start, in the lower mainland, and then it moves over to Calgary or Edmonton, and then it comes up to our community.

“So, being prepared for toxic drug supply coming in can help us with promoting our harm reduction practices and Naloxone distribution and using our safe consumption site.”

Along with helping Northreach track trends and be better prepared, Loset says this new reporting model could also be beneficial in raising public awareness.

“Having a quarterly report, when we all know when it comes out or when it’s supposed to come out, we watch for it and read it, but I think having it come out monthly shows it’s more important. Like, this is being updated every month, so it must be a significant thing to be aware of, so I hope that it will reach more people.”

While there are benefits to having more frequently reported data, Loset is slightly concerned that people may become fatigued with hearing the statistics reported over and over, though she does stress the importance of this issue and its need to be addressed, as most people will have been impacted by the loss of someone to substances of some kind, whether it be illicit drugs, alcohol, or others.

Along with Northreach’s naloxone training and distribution, and the supervised consumption site, there are a number of other resources available in Grande Prairie for people struggling with substance abuse. Alberta Health Services runs several different programs for people trying to overcome and recover from substance abuse.

More details on those resources can be found at the Addiction and Mental Health office at the Aberdeen Centre, or online at the AHS and the MyHealth websites.