At tonight’s online Chatham-Kent council meeting, council will hear an information report that provides updates on the municipality’s development of a municipal drug strategy.
Back in 2020, council gave the go-ahead to spend $110,000 to fund the coordination of a community drug strategy. However, with the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit having their hands full due to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic, this project was not implemented.
A municipal drug strategy is once again a priority, as a tender was recently given to a consulting firm to prepare a local drug strategy.
According to the report, the drug issue in Chatham-Kent has spiked in recent years. The report said in the first quarter of 2022 there were nine opioid-related deaths in Chatham-Kent, putting the area’s rate above the provincial average and among the highest across Ontario.