A wider, more complex mix of substances is being found in Calgary’s illicit drug supply, while front-line agencies around the city are responding to a spike in overdoses this year.
University of Calgary researchers say samples collected over the past three months have contained upward of 11 different substances, including combinations of fentanyl, carfentanil, methamphetamines, ketamine and other highly potent opioids or tranquilizers.
“No one specimen that we’re seeing is necessarily identical to the other, which is very problematic,” said Monty Ghosh, one of the U of C researchers tracking this data.
He noted that in the past, it has been more common to find just two or three substances in a sample, sometimes mixed with several less problematic additives.
The team’s findings are distressing, Ghosh said, because when someone overdoses after taking this cocktail of substances, they can be more difficult to resuscitate. Naloxone can reverse overdoses from opioids, but is not necessarily as effective against drugs mixed with tranquilizers or benzodiazepines.
Ghosh said the samples he is seeing are “all over the place.”
“It’s constantly shifting, constantly changing, and it’s highly, highly unpredictable,” said Ghosh.
At the same time, several organizations across the city say they have responded to more overdoses in recent months.
In 2025, the Calgary Drop-In Centre (DI) responded to around 1,300 overdoses, with a spike in the last few months of the year.
By mid-April this year, the DI had already surpassed that mark, said the site’s chief operating officer David Sawatzky.
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Sawatzky said the DI works with researchers who monitor wastewater and analyze drug paraphernalia from the shelter. He said a more toxic mix of substances, notably the veterinary-grade tranquilizer medetomidine, is being found in samples from the DI.
And that has made the DI’s clients more anxious about the city’s drug supply, Sawatzky said.
“They don’t have a whole lot of control as to what’s cut into the substances they’re taking.”
The DI has a 24/7 team that can respond to overdoses quickly on-site. But Sawatzky said he’s concerned for clients’ safety due to the cumulative effect of repeated overdoses, and how responding to 10 to 12 drug poisonings per day focuses much of the DI’s resources on crisis management.
Other agencies are feeling a similar strain. BeTheChangeYYC CEO Chaz Smith told CBC News in March that the street-level outreach group was finding more overdoses in recent months, on a level it had never seen before.
Another Calgary outreach group and shelter, Alpha House, has reported more overdoses recently, which it also attributes to differing levels of toxicity in the city’s drug supply. A spokesperson for the shelter called the trend both concerning and expected.
“We welcome new ideas and strategies that can help equip agencies on the front lines of the drug crisis with tools to prevent overdoses and respond more effectively,” said Alpha House spokesperson Shaundra Bruvall in a statement.
Provincial data shows that from Dec. 29, 2025, to April 26, 2026, emergency medical services responded to 814 opioid-related events in Calgary — nearly double the number EMS responded to from January to April last year.
The Calgary Fire Department responded to 2,874 substance-related incidents in the first four months of this year, which is already more than half of what the CFD saw last year.
Medetomidine, a tranquilizer only intended for use in animals, is also being detected more frequently around Alberta, as well as in other cities like Toronto and Winnipeg.
Alberta’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction said on Wednesday that while the number of opioid-related overdose deaths in Calgary may fluctuate month to month, that figure dropped 65 per cent from a peak in 2023 to last year.
The ministry pointed to more treatment, detox and recovery services as effective expansions to its system of care.
“Alberta’s government has made significant strides to address addiction challenges across the province,” the ministry’s statement said.
While it’s possible the larger hodgepodge of substances in Calgary could come from people mixing their own drugs, Ghosh said he believes it is also due to how accessible the illicit drug market has become.
Rather than organized crime rings that would create a more uniform supply, Ghosh said it’s easier for anyone to order precursor substances from around the world, manufacture drugs and sell them.
“In some respects, drug manufacturing, drug distribution has very much become democratized,” said Ghosh.
A more unpredictable drug supply makes it more dangerous for people to use substances alone, Ghosh said. He noted that supervised consumption sites are an ideal response to this, with the equipment and staff to respond quickly to an overdose.
The provincial government is closing Calgary’s only site at the end of June.
Without a supervised consumption site, Ghosh said it’s safer for people to use drugs in public with someone else nearby to resuscitate them, rather than alone in a private space.
Ultimately, Ghosh said he and his colleagues want an early alert warning system to notify people who use drugs and health care providers via text message and email when there are notable shifts in the drug supply.
“Knowing that we’re seeing a large amount of, say, carfentanil mixed with ketamine tells me that I need to manage a patient differently than if they didn’t have ketamine in them,” said Ghosh.
Sawatzky said the DI has seen overdose numbers at the shelter stabilize in the last couple of weeks.
But Ghosh said researchers are concerned about how the unpredictability of the city’s drug supply can quickly change those numbers.
“It just takes another player to come to the drug market, another lone person who’s manufacturing stuff in their own basement, to shift what’s going on in the drug supply, wreaking havoc in our city,” said Ghosh. “It’s not that hard to do.”
