Alberta’s Indigenous people three times more likely to die from opioids – Calgary Herald
November 8, 2017
Alberta’s Indigenous communities are receiving a disproportionate amount of opioid prescriptions amid an epidemic of overdose deaths, according to the first detailed snapshot of substance use among First Nations compiled by the province since the opioid crisis began.
Over a 15-month period beginning in January 2016, First Nations people died of opioid overdoses at a rate three times that of the rest of the provincial population.
A majority of the deaths occurred in Calgary.
The report noted First Nations people were twice as likely as other Albertans to be prescribed an opioid in the four-year period from 2013 to 2016.
