Three cities on 'high alert' as overdose spike stabilizes

Moncton fire department responded to more than 800 overdose calls in a month

Article content The Moncton Fire Department responded to more than 800 drug overdose calls through the month of June, far above the usual volume in the hub city. But officials are now hoping the crisis is under control with more medical services available on downtown streets. The spike is tied to what authorities say is the distribution of drugs that have been contaminated with an animal tranquilizer known as medetomidine.

“The numbers seem to be stabilizing and back to where they were before the crisis began at the end of May,” Moncton Fire Chief Conrad Landry told Brunswick News last week. “But since they added a medical tent at the hub on St. George Street, it has made a difference in the number of calls.” The tent is staffed by nurses and managed by the Salvus Clinic.

“As soon as they put that tent up, we saw our numbers start to go down,” said Landry. The chief said the fire department responded to 839 calls for suspected poisoning or drug overdoses between May 29 and July 5. He said the majority of drug overdose calls were in the downtown area around St. George Street, where non-profit agencies provide assistance to the homeless and people with addiction issues.

It was not known if any of the drug overdoses were fatal. Crews from the MFD respond to 911 calls for drug overdoses on a daily basis and a new medical response vehicle, based out of a department pickup truck, was put into service at the Brandon Street station in June to take the load off the bigger fire trucks. Of the 839 calls in May and June, 448 were classed as overdose/poisoning, 48 were classed as “undetermined,” and 343 were classed as “altered or loss of consciousness.”

Fire department data show the number of responses peaking at 38 calls on May 30 and peaking again at 32 calls on both June 18 and June 19. Another spike occurred June 30 with 30 calls. Other days show the number of overdose calls ranging from six to 30.

Medical-assist calls make up the bulk of the Moncton Fire Department’s responses to 911 calls. In 2025, the last year with complete data, there were 6,008 medical calls, of which 655 were classed as “overdose/poisoning.” The recent numbers prompted discussion between Moncton Mayor Shawn Crossman and Premier Susan Holt last week as the premier and members of her caucus were in the city.

Crossman said it was a good meeting and the city is working on a new action plan to address the high number of overdoses. Holt called the overdose numbers a “crisis” with “devastating results,” which prompted the government to launch an emergency response late last month to “try to ensure safety.” She said it was a dominating topic in her conversation with Crossman as the pair looked at other supports for those with addiction issues.

“We talked about what else we need to do in order to provide supports: transitional housing supports, complex care supports, making sure there are wraparound services available for both crisis intervention but then how do we prevent this? “How do we catch it and make sure that people are getting served when we can have the most impact?” said the premier. Minister responsible for Addictions and Mental Health Services Rob McKee was also at that meeting and told Brunswick News the province is doing more work to address such situations and, hopefully, prevent them or at least be better prepared when they appear.

“We’ve learned a great deal from this experience and we’d be better prepared to address this if a similar situation were to arise in the future,” McKee said. “By that, I mean at the very start of this crisis we were getting reports of a spike in overdoses and agencies administering Narcan seven or eight times and they were not responding to it, and come to find out that might not have been the best way to deal with that person in that situation,” he said. “As the crisis evolved, we learned from those experiences and how we dealt with individuals in crisis changed over time.

I think we learned from this experience and are better prepared to address similar situations should they arise in the future.” Part of that included having the Emergency Measures Organization brought in because of its experience dealing with crisis situations. Generally, McKee said, one thinks of natural disasters when the EMO is involved.

But the provincial government opted to send it in for its “experience, expertise in dealing with crisis, helping to co-ordinate the response between multiple agencies, multiple departments, regional health authorities and they’ve been very helpful in that regard.” McKee said the organization has proven helpful in Moncton and it’s “beneficial having them at the table helping to co-ordinate the response.” Fredericton’s police force told Brunswick News it too has seen an uptick in overdose numbers this year.

Research and communications co-ordinator Megan Barker said the force responded to 101 overdose incidents as of June 2026, including one fatal overdose. By comparison for the entire year of 2025, police responded to 162 incidents, including nine fatal overdoses. Overdose numbers in Saint John, however, have remained lower than average this year, said the city’s fire chief, Rob Nichol.

He said the department has stayed in contact with Moncton and officials to have a better understanding of what is taking place in the event medetomidine begins to appear in local drugs. “To date we do have a different story than what Moncton has experienced,” he said. “In Saint John, we’ve actually seen a slightly lower trend of Narcan administration by Saint John Fire Department.

“Now, some of that is due to there’s certainly more Narcan out in the community, so it doesn’t give a 100 per cent accurate picture of the amount of overdose calls that people are responding to. But so far, we are trending slightly lower even than we were in 2025. We have not seen that spike that Moncton has.”

Nichol said the department is still analyzing June data and couldn’t provide detailed numbers on the overdose calls, but noted he is “comfortable saying that trending, so far in 2026, we’re slightly lower than what we experienced in 2025.” Regardless, he said communication with Moncton continues as the local department aims to be prepared in the event overdoses begin to spike in the city. “It’s an hour-and-15 minutes up the road,” the chief said.

“We are preparing. We’ve had co-ordination meetings to understand what Moncton has done, how it involved Public Health, Ambulance New Brunswick, Horizon Health (Network)... We’re having those discussions with partners and we don’t really need to recreate the wheel in Saint John, we’ve been fortunate to learn from what worked well in Moncton and how they’ve adjusted and shifted their response.”

Drugs being tested at Avenue B Harm Reduction Inc. in Saint John’s Waterloo Village are showing substances “similar to what they’re finding in Moncton,” said the organization’s executive director, Laura MacNeill. But, like Nichol, she stressed there has been no spike in overdoses. However, she said, the organization is on “high alert.”

“That means making sure all of our community partners feel really comfortable and ready to react if they need to,” she said. “We put out a blitz of education. We’ve seen a big uptick in individuals doing Naloxone training.

It’s just letting people know if something should come it’s a full community reaction.” MacNeill said anyone interested in Naloxone training can visit the Avenue B office and receive a free kit and the 15 minute training on how to administer the drug should they be in the presence of someone suffering an overdose.