Surge in overdoses at Montreal supervised consumption site: ‘It’s a very alarming rate’

An advocate at a supervised consumption site in Montreal is worried about the growing number of people using the services.

CACTUS Montréal is seeing an average of six to eight overdoses a day – the highest number ever recorded.

It’s all happening against the backdrop of an ongoing opioid crisis in Quebec.

Alex Berthelot, the director of community services at CACTUS, says something must change.

“When we first opened this site in 2017, we saw one or two overdoses a month. So, to be six to eight a day, it’s a very alarming rate,” Berthelot told CityNews.

“The number is very concerning especially considering that it’s an upward trend.”

CACTUS Montréal is one of four supervised consumption sites in the city. It’s open seven days a week from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. and receives around 70 people a day.

Berthelot says people are using substances without knowing what’s in them. CACTUS’ drug testing service has revealed the drugs often contain between five to 50 per cent fentanyl.

“It’s kind of like going to the liquor store and going to buy a bottle and it says somewhere between five and 50 per cent, you don’t know whether to pour a pint or to pour a shot glass,” Berthelot said.

Opioid overdoses are on the rise, with data from Urgences-santé showing paramedics have administered naloxone 326 times in 2023 – a 12 per cent increase from 2022.

Naloxone temporarily reverses an opioid overdose. Quebec has made naloxone kits available free of charge at pharmacies.

Calls for more regulations

But Berthelot says more could be done to curb the rising trend.

“We need a regulated market for the drugs,” he said. “We need people to know what they’re using.”

Sarah-Jeanne Voillot, from the Association Québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des personnes utilisatrices de drogues (AQPSUD), agrees.

“If you go to a bar, if you go to an SAQ anywhere in the world, you buy a bottle of let’s say tequila, there are regulations to what makes it tequila and it needs to not kill you when you drink it, right?” she said.

Voillot says similar to cannabis, other types of drugs should also be regulated as it could potentially save lives.

“Are we ever going to get to that with drugs? I don’t know. We would have thought that it would be impossible but now we see with marijuana that it is possible.”