Chief pledges to banish drug dealers as Fort Chipewyan grapples with suicide crisis – CBC

Apr 27, 2023

‘We are, 100 per cent, going after the drug dealers. Enough is enough’

An illicit supply of drugs in Fort Chipewyan is contributing to a suicide crisis in the remote northern Alberta community, says the chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation.

The band declared a state of local emergency this week, raising the alarm over a string of recent deaths by suicide, and numerous suicide attempts, in the isolated hamlet of about 800 people, 220 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.

Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro said at least five band members have died by suicide in the past couple of months.

Ten others have attempted to take their lives in the past week, he said.

Read More: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-chipewyan-alberta-suicide-emergency-1.6823517