Regina police update number of drug overdoses

The Regina Police Service continues to deal with a high number of drug overdoses in the city.

Less than a week after saying its officers had responded to more than a dozen overdoses in 2 1/2 days, the RPS issued an update Friday.

In a media release, the police said there had been 43 overdoses in Regina since Jan. 1. Police officers had been called in 26 of those cases and, on 11 occasions, had given the victims naloxone.

The release noted there had been one overdose on Friday morning as well.

Police believe fentanyl is the root cause of the recent rash of overdoses. However, there haven’t been any deaths reported.

Police Chief Evan Bray on Friday called the number of overdoses in Regina in recent weeks “astronomical.”

Bray has said that having officers deal with the labour dispute at the Co-op refinery has been a distraction for the police. On Friday, he noted that situation has kept some officers from the fight against drugs and addictions, which he called “true public safety situations.”

Bray said the officers’ use of naloxone during the recent spree of overdoses has been key to keeping people alive.

“We’ve rolled out naloxone to all frontline officers this year,” he said, “and as timing would have it, it couldn’t have happened at a better time because we’ve got some bad drugs in our community that are causing some real overdose concerns.”