Greater Sudbury to host a summit on the escalating drug toxicity crisis

With recent data suggesting the opioid crisis in Greater Sudbury is worsening, city council passed a resolution Tuesday night to host a local leadership summit focusing on this issue.

Ward 6 councilor Ren Lapierre's successful motion argued that opioid mortality rates in the city are increasing despite "numerous multi sector substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement efforts."

To reverse this trend, the resolution stated that there needs to be an "intensification of leadership action."

Lapierre says a local leadership summit could help spread ideas and strategies on how to tackle this problem.

Coroner highlights opioid related death trends in Sudbury

The Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dr. Dirk Huyer, delivered a presentation during the city council meeting.

He analyzed and compared Sudbury's opioid mortality data to that of the province.

"Northern Ontario and Sudbury are more impacted than the rest of Ontario," he said.

Huyer encouraged city council to reach out to public health agencies and organizations to better understand why that is.

"These are your communities. You have greater insight than we do," he said.

Huyer added there are some trends in the Greater Sudbury mortality rate data worth exploring.

For example, "polysubstance use contributing to death" is higher in the north than elsewhere in Ontario, said Huyer.

That's when an opioid overdose victim has also used substances like cocaine or methamphetamine.

"Why are we seeing more of this in your area?" he asked.

Huyer also noted that there are more people using inhalation as a method to use drugs in Sudbury compared to the provincial average, but specified that doesn't explain the higher mortality rate.

He added that data relating to socioeconomic factors (marital status, living arrangements, employment) of victims in Sudbury were similar to those found elsewhere in Ontario.

More information about the plans and objectives for Greater Sudbury's opioid summit will be available in October.