After record-worst year, Hamilton’s opioid crisis continues to rear its head

The opioid epidemic in Hamilton continues to deepen in the wake of its worst year on record for fatalities.

City data shows Hamilton paramedics have responded to an average 61 suspected opioid overdose calls per month - or two a day - in the first seven months of 2022, part of a broader trend one public health official says has steadily intensified since the outset of COVID-19.

The situation has definitely worsened over time," Michelle Baird, the city's director of epidemiology, wellness and communicable disease control, said in an interview.

Indeed, paramedic calls for suspected overdoses have skyrocketed over the past half-decade, from an average of 35 per month in 2017 and 37 in 2018 to a record-high of 76 in 2021 and 61 as of July in 2022.

It's a troubling spike that's also come with tragic consequences.

Hamilton has recorded more than 100 opioid-related deaths for four consecutive years - including 166 in 2021, the most since public health began collecting fatality data in 2005.

The latest available data for 2022 shows 55 people have died from opioids since March - a figure well on pace to eclipse the century-mark by year's end and already higher than each of the annual death tolls experienced between 2005 and 2016.

What explains the pattern is a number of factors, Baird said, but most pointedly, it's the pandemic.

Limited in-person resources isolated people and heightened their propensity to use, while closures at border crossings and ports prompted dealers to mix their supply stocks to match pre-pandemic levels. Hamilton doctors sounded the alarm about the latter in April 2021 after local overdose symptoms reflected a dangerous lab-confirmed trend of fentanyl laced with powerful sedatives.

We certainly saw throughout the pandemic that the impact to our most vulnerable was higher than before," Baird said. And a piece of that was definitely (tied to) supply; people got different drugs than they were used to."

Advocates often say effective measures to limit opioid-related deaths are increasing the distribution of naloxone kits and availability of harm-reduction services.

On Wednesday, city councillors voted to ask to be included in a federal pilot project, already approved in British Columbia, that aims to decriminalize illicit drugs for personal use.

Public health officials voiced widespread support for the initiative, arguing that referring users to health and social supports - instead of punishing them - is a more productive way to address the opioid crisis.

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com