Cocaine use rising in Canada, new data suggests, as researchers link stimulants to drug deaths

More Canadians are using stimulants such as cocaine, new federal data suggests, and experts warn the trend is contributing to a high percentage of drug-related deaths.

In most municipalities studied, cocaine levels rose from January to May 2022 compared with the same period in 2020, and early data for 2023 suggests that overall rise is continuing, according to a Statistics Canada report released on Wednesday.

And, as drug overdoses increased overall by more than 30 per cent from 2020 to 2021, roughly half of the apparent accidental opioid deaths "also involved a stimulant," said Statistics Canada, citing another report by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The data "shows that in the last few years, things have worsened," said Tara Gomes, a research scientist based out of Unity Health Toronto and a principal investigator with the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN), who wasn't involved in the federal analysis. 

"This is really complex," she said. "People are using multiple substances, and need multiple types of programs and services."

The Statistics Canada report was based on data from the Canadian Wastewater Survey, which has been regularly collecting wastewater samples from several municipalities across the country since 2019 to test for various types of drugs. 

The report also compared Canadian cities with more than 100,000 people to those in Europe, where wastewater monitoring is conducted by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction. 

That breakdown puts five Canadian cities among the top ten places with the highest levels of cocaine in wastewater, including Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Toronto. The top Canadian city, ranked third, was Halifax.

CBC News recently reported that cocaine was linked to a rise in drug-related deaths and overdoses throughout Nova Scotia. Nearly half of the close to 80 accidental overdose deaths last year there involved cocaine, triple the number from a decade ago. 

Nova Scotia's health authority says cocaine and the opioid hydromorphone were among the drugs reported to have been used in one recent "cluster" of suspected overdoses, which included a death.

Ontario is also experiencing a rise in people dying from multiple toxic substances, including stimulants, based on the latest available data. 

A report by Gomes, released in September by the ODPRN and Public Health Ontario, showed nearly 2,900 Ontarians died from consuming a toxic substance in 2021 — nearly double the number from just three years prior.

After the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, more deaths occurred as a result of at least two types of substances, Gomes' team found, with most of those people having a mixture of opioids and stimulants in their systems. 

Gomes notes the illicit opioid supply has been contaminated with other substances, including benzodiazepines, a class of drugs that slow brain activity, and may be used to treat conditions such as anxiety. Some individuals may use stimulants to counter those sedating effects.