We want to keep people alive’: Outreach workers call for tools to combat toxic new street drugs - CBC News [2023-12-14]

Walking through the Glengarry non-profit housing complex in Windsor, Ont., harm reduction outreach co-ordinator Lacie Krzemien is exhausted.

The recent news that Windsor’s only safe consumption site, Safepoint, will pause operations at the end of December has left her despondent.

“I’m upset, because it’s taking away another resource. It means more of my clients are at a higher risk of death,” said Krzemien, who distributes safe supplies for people using drugs with Pozitive Pathways Community Services.

She says the announcement comes at a time when the drug supply has become increasingly toxic. The arrival of drugs such as “tranq,” fentanyl mixed with xylazine, an animal tranquillizer that’s resistant to naloxone, is making the overdose crisis even more complicated.

Tranq has also become infamous for causing users to develop seeping wounds.

Earlier this year, Health Canada released a report that said tranq was spreading rapidly across Canada. In 2022, 75 per cent of the drug samples tested that contained xylazine were from Ontario. According to Ontario’s coroner, xylazine has been detected in 184 drug toxicity deaths since 2020.

At least two of those were in Windsor.