Opioid deaths are down but emergency calls are spiking. Inside the mystery leaving Ontario paramedics ‘flying blind’

As a seasoned paramedic, Owen VanDyke recalls when he could quickly decipher what drug a patient overdosed on.

These days, it’s a high-stakes process of elimination. Sometimes people are purposely combining different drugs, often fentanyl and methamphetamine. Frequently, it’s because Toronto’s opioid street supply is heavily contaminated with a triple threat of potent central nervous depressants that can quickly send a person’s vitals into dangerous territory.