Guy Felicella says he couldn’t “pry open a man’s jaw” to help him breathe when the man overdosed on Xylazine-tainted fentanyl. The drug, a veterinary sedative that has crept into the nation’s illegal drug supply, had left the man paralyzed.
Felicella, a harm-reduction advocate, says the overdose crisis has intensified as hard-to-identify drugs such as Xylazine become more widespread.
“It’s really hard to treat when we don’t know what a person has consumed,” said Felicella, who has overdosed himself multiple times in Vancouver’s East Side. Felicella has been sober for 13 years.
“It’s so hard for people in today’s day and age to recover, which makes it even harder because the drug supply is littered with, not just fentanyl, but benzodiazepines and Xylazine.”
About 18 people die from opioid overdoses across Canada every day, according to Statistics Canada. Xylazine, which goes by the street name “Tranq,” is among the many contaminants that have made their way into Canada’s drug supply.
Ottawa has seen a significant number of reported cases of Xylazine detection in recent months, with a quarter of fentanyl seizures made in the nation’s capital containing the drug, the Ottawa Police Service told the Capital Current.
Xylazine causes ‘shift in overdose presentations’
Xylazine heavily sedates a user, causing paralysis and slowing breathing. Longterm effects include open sores, which can lead to amputation or organ damage, and cardiovascular issues.
Frontline health-care staff have begun seeing a “shift in overdose presentations,” with people having more serious symptoms, including the effects of paralysis, said Sandy Hill Health Centre’s director of consumption and treatment services Dean Dewar.
Through new testing technology, the centre has identified Xylazine as a major catalyst for this wave of more severe overdose symptoms.
Xylazine contamination adds another layer to an intensifying nationwide drug crisis, which former MP from the Peterborough-Kawartha riding Michelle Ferreri describes as “the biggest crisis we have ever had in our country.”
Ferreri says, “there has never been anything of this magnitude in our history.”
About 13 per cent of opioid samples tested in 2024 across Canada contained Xylazine, according to Health Canada, a significant jump from one per cent recorded in 2019-2020.
Burnout, fatigue and low morale in first responders
Frontline workers are becoming increasingly burned out as the complexity and frequency of overdoses intensifies, Dewar said.
“Staff frequently respond to overdoses before even entering their shifts,” he said. “The emotional and physical toll, from performing chest compressions to supporting clients post-hospitalization, is significant.”
First responders are “completely burned out, and they have completely developed compassion fatigue,” Ferreri agreed. “They are the people screaming for help more than anybody, because the helpers need help” she said.
Despite an increase in reported detections, first responders treating overdoses do not have the ability to test for Xylazine in the field.
Xylazine often mirrors the effects of other compounds, Marc-Antoine Deschamps, superintendent for public information at Ottawa Paramedic Services, says. The use of Narcan does little to reverse the drug’s effects as well, he said. The effects of Xylazine cannot be reversed and require longer term ventilatory support, Deschamps said.
“[Workers] are so fatigued, and it’s why you have a low retention rate, it’s why you have low morale, and it’s why more people are leaving their jobs on stress leave because they can’t handle it.” Ferreri said.
“The whole way they deal with it is costing millions, if not billions of dollars for the economy because of the lower work productivity.”
Supervised consumption sites
Meanwhile, debate over supervised consumption sites rages among experts and policymakers. The Ontario government has decided to close several sites, with Premier Doug Ford calling them “the worst thing that could happen to a neighbourhood.”
Between January 2017 and May 2025, Canada’s supervised consumption sites saw more than five million visits, according to Health Canada. Between late March and August, the Ford government closed 10 of 23 sites, setting up treatment facilities in some.
“People who are in active addiction cannot just quit, they are not in that capacity. You need to stop funding drugs, stop funding the ideology and invest in treatment and recovery” Ferreri said.
“Public health units now are putting out a notice that there is a toxic drug supply, ‘Be careful when using’. The message is the problem: how about ‘Don’t use drugs,’” she said.
But Dewar thinks supervised consumption sites reduce the risk of toxicity by providing safer supply to treat people with addictions.
“Despite facing immense hardship and lacking political voice, (users) deserve equitable, accessible, and appropriate health care like any other population,” he said.
Xylazine and other drugs unknowingly consumed can cause addiction and withdrawal symptoms without users even being aware of it, said Dr. Monty Ghosh, a physician and a professor of medicine at both the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.
“We’re dealing with opioid addiction, but also other addictions they may not even know about yet,” Ghosh said. “Most of them know what’s going on, but I think that what they don’t understand is some of the consequences from the substance use itself, due to the variety of contaminants.”
