City of Thunder Bay marks International Overdose Awareness Day

The goals of International Overdose Awareness Day in Thunder Bay included raising awareness of the risks of overdose and promoting harm reduction.

The city's event Wednesday at Waverley Parkfeatured a theme of "together we can," withcommunity members, first respondersand local organizations discussing the toxic drug and overdose crisis.

"Addressing the overdose crisis is really going to require a whole of community, a whole of government effort," said Rilee Willianen, acting lead for the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy. "There's no one entity that does not have a role to play in this."

In a media release, the City of Thunder Bay said there were more than 2,600 overdose deaths in Ontario in 2023, with Thunder Bay having one of the highest rates per capita.

That's why the Thunder Bay event was also about remembering the many people who have died from overdoses. said Kyle Arnold, a harm reduction support worker. "Overdoses are happening every day and I hope it brings awareness, it connects community partners as well as it gives us a time to mourn so many people that we have lost in the community."

Thunder Bay's deputy fire chief, Dave Tarini, said events like the one Wednesday are important, as they show the amount of behind-the-scenes by various organizations.

"We can see how many different folks are set up here with booths, how many people have been affected by the drug crisis, not just going on in our city, but across the country," Tarini said. "It's a very multifaceted problem and finding onesolution that's going to solve the problem is is probably a little too ambitious.

"So we have to look at it from a bunch of different angles and try and find a co-operative solutions, working with the groups in town, with first responders, with folks from the medical community and whatnot to come up with a common goal and try and tackle the problem a little bit at a time."

Brittany Caul, who's in recovery, said she was happy to see the turnout at Waverley Park.

"I'm almost 10 months clean," she said. "I went to sister Margaret Smith and now I'm at Crossroads, and I lost a friend to overdose in June that was with me atCrossroads. So overdose awareness is very close to my heart."

A number of harm reduction services are available in the city, including:

• Free sterile needles and pipes, which are available at various local organizations;
• Naloxone, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, and can be obtained at pharmaciesor through the Thunder Bay District Health Unit;
• A supervised consumption site and drug-checking service at NorWest Community Health Centres;
• The LifeguardConnect app, which helps monitor people using drugs alone, and sends out alerts about toxic drugs.
• Withdrawal management services at Balmoral Centre.

"There's ways to stop it, there's ways to help and there's a great community for recovery in Thunder Bay," Caul said. "Just gettingthe right tools to in case you do overdose, like Narcan and all that stuffthat saves lives.

"It's important if you're using to use safe."