heroin overdose deaths

In recent years, illicit drug overdose deaths have increased rapidly and have affected every part of the country. A key issue that communities across Canada are facing today is the use of heroin illegally, especially among youngsters and they are getting attracted towards more and more consumption of Heroin which is affecting their health and lives. Drug overdose can be accidental or intentional. An overdose occurs when a person takes more quantity of a drug that his/her body could afford or sensitive to certain substances. A 2019 National Report: Apparent Opioid-related Deaths in Canada by Public Health Agency of Canada, more than 11500 deaths occurred during January 2016 and December 2018. Specifically, 3017 deaths occurred in 2016, 4100 deaths in 2017 and 4460 deaths occurred in 2018, which means that every two hours 1 person is dying of an overdose. 94% of deaths are accidental and majorities of the people dying are between 20-30 yrs of age. Overdose deaths are not only happening among people with long term substance use, even who use the substance occasionally or for the first time could be a victim.According to the tests of thousands of samples conducted by Canada’s Health regulators, the amount of positive tests of fentanyl in illegal street heroin has jumped enormously. Fentanyl is entirely synthetic and easy to smuggle because of its chemical makeup which makes it hard to detect at customs. It is cheaper and extremely potent, 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin, so it becomes an attractive substitute for drug dealers to mix it into costly heroin to stretch their supplies so they can make large profits from it. As fentanyl is a very powerful and lethal drug, but street dealers are not skilled enough to keep the dose in a survivable range, even a small mistake in cutting active ingredients into consumable doses can easily become a deadly overdose. That is the main reason behind the growing numbers of overdose deaths. According to Dr. David Jurrlink, head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook health sciences centre in Toronto, “The illicit drug supply has never been more dangerous because of the profusion of fentanyl-related compounds. This is why so many people are dying. They are dying because the drug they’re using contain