First responders were called to the Ensemble overdose prevention site in Moncton, N.B., around noon Friday.
The day before, there were five overdose calls at the same location.
The cause? Fentanyl, a powerful and deadly opioid.
Ensemble is a safe haven for people who use drugs where naloxone kits can be found — an antidote for accidental opioid overdoses.
Sarah Doiron, the safe space coordinator at Ensemble, said there have been 21 overdoses at the facility since March.
"To me, that seems like a lot. Once we started having overdoses, I think we had about five a month,” said Doiron. “Now, just this week, I think we've had four during our open hours. To me, that's alarming. It's a high number for sure.”
Moncton firefighters respond to on-average seven overdoses a day, a significant increase over the past six to 12 months according to Moncton Fire Department Chief Conrad Landry.
"When you're talking about seven to eight calls per day, even if they only last 15 minutes, that's still a lot of time that they could be at a fire,” said Landry. “Because for us, if they're already at that call, we don't divert them, we send another crew from another station.”
The operations director of Harvest House, a homeless shelter and addiction treatment centre, has never seen the drug problem this bad in his hometown.
“I have a hard time letting things go," said Jamie Mills. "This is our community, it's my community. Even though they're addicts, I love them and they're worth more than this.”
So what can be done to reduce the number of overdoses?
"You know, when you go to the liquor store you know what's in your alcohol, you know the percentage of alcohol, all the contents. Why isn't it like that for other substances?" said Doiron. "It would definitely save lives if we had access to a safe supply."
According to Mills, the only way to avoid an overdose is by not using.
“I don't know any other way,” said Mills. “The fentanyl is so powerful, one grain can kill you. So, you might get away with it a certain amount of times, but it's just a matter of time before you are going to overdose."
