Via CBC News Edmonton: Record total of 343 fentanyl deaths last year prompts Alberta government action. Excerpt:
Facing a grim and growing death toll from fentanyl overdoses — a total of 343 last year — the Alberta government moved Tuesday to make antidote kits available to all first-responders and to the general public without prescriptions.
Naloxone, the antidote that blocks the effects of an overdose, will now be listed as an unscheduled drug in Alberta, allowing anyone to get a kit.
The total number of deaths in Alberta last year marked an increase of almost 100 over the 2015 total, when 257 people died.
At a news conference Tuesday at an Edmonton fire hall, the province's associate health minister also announced plans to open an opioid dependency treatment clinic this spring in Grande Prairie, to serve 300 patients.
Alberta Health will also begin publishing interim reports on fentanyl deaths to give the public and front-line workers more up-to-date information, said associate minister of health Brandy Payne.