Saskatoon’s only supervised consumption site is raising alarm bells about an increase in overdoses in 2025.
Prairie Harm Reduction’s Miranda Deck said there has been a “huge” number of overdoses in the last four days alone.
“On Thursday and Friday, there were about 10 that we responded to (in the site or just outside),” Deck said.
She said they have heard from other organizations noticing a recent uptick in overdoses.
“It’s more of a bad batch situation,” Deck said. “I do know from our director at the drop-in that prior to Thursday, it had been about three weeks since they had seen an overdose in the safe consumption site.”
Saskatoon police told Global News they are not aware of any new drugs circulating in the community. They did not provide a number for how many overdoses they have responded to this year.
Meanwhile in Regina, overdoses thus far in 2025 are down, according to police.
From Jan. 1 to 12, 2023, there were 57 recorded overdoses. In that same time period in 2024, the number jumped to 88.
This year, however, Regina has seen 13 recorded overdoses, according to Regina police.
Deck wants to remind people that carrying nasal or inter-muscular naloxone can be life-saving. She went on to say anyone who is using should test their drugs and not use alone.
“We have a spectrometer at the drop-in centre or the safe consumption site that they can come and use or use testing strips on their own,” Deck said.