Ontario is in the midst of a drug crisis. These 7 charts tell us who’s being hit hardest
As Canada grapples with a drug toxicity crisis, new research looking at four years of opioid overdose deaths in Ontario offers a revealing glimpse of the face of these victims.
The research highlights, among other things, the disproportionate impact that opioid overdoses are having on Black, Asian and Latin American drug users and raises questions about whether the province’s racialized communities are getting the help they need.
… The researchers found that when they compared the number of deaths occurring by ethno-racial group in the first quarter to the last quarter in the study period, the proportions changed. During the first quarter, July-September 2017, white people accounted for 92.6 per cent of those who died of opioid toxicity. That proportion had dropped slightly to 90.1 per cent by the last quarter of the study period. At the same time, the proportion of Asian and Latin American people dying of opioid toxicity rose to 5.9 per cent from 3.6 per cent, while the proportion of Black people who died increased marginally to four per cent from 3.9 per cent.
