Why big-city solutions to the opioids crisis dont work in rural communities
Last winter was a brutal one in southwestern Alberta, with snowdrifts taller than trucks and record-breaking cold temperatures. Then, in late February, nature delivered another blow: a howling blizzard, icy roads, and snow that reduced visibility to near zero. At the same time, a particularly lethal shipment of opioids, known on the street as “super beans,” arrived in the area. Officials would later say that they suspected the drugs contained carfentanil, the powerful opioid 5,000 times more potent than heroin. People started overdosing almost immediately.
“It was a perfect storm,” says Esther Tailfeathers, a physician in Stand Off, a small community that’s a forty-minute drive southwest of Lethbridge. Stand Offis the administrative centre of Blood Reserve 148, the largest First Nations reserve in Canada and territory of the Blood Tribe (also known as the Kainai First Nation). About 4,500 members live on-reserve. “The graders and snowplows were working like crazy just to get to the homes where the overdoses had happened,” Tailfeathers says. Paramedics responded to 150 calls that weekend — a substantial feat, considering the community covers an area twice the size of Toronto. In one home, Tailfeathers says, five people overdosed at the same time. Over ten days, thirty people overdosed on the Blood reserve, and nearby Lethbridge reported more than fifty others.
This story is from the November 2018 edition of The Walrus.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2018 edition of The Walrus.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.
The Upside-Down Book
In her new novel, Rachel Cusk makes the case for becoming a stranger to yourself
Pick a Colour
BACK HERE, I can hear a group of women trickle in. Filling the floor with giggles and voices.
Quebec's Crushing Immigration Policy
Familial separation can have devastating consequences on mental health and productivity
The Briefcase
What I learned about being a writer from trying to finish a dead man's book
In the Footsteps of Migrants Who Never Made It
Thousands have died trying to cross into the US from Mexico. Each year, activists follow their harrowing trek
Blood Language
Menstruation ties us to the land in ways we've all but forgotten
Dream Machines
The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Invisible Lives
Without immigration status, Canada's undocumented youth stay in the shadows
My Guilty Pleasure
"The late nights are mine alone, and I'll spend them however I damn well please"