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that determination and drive to really get the stuff done that needed to be done at work and not have it affect my life. as incredible as all of that is, it eventually did affect your life. and you couldn’t keep these two parts of your life going. yeah. so this this the stress of of people finding out that i was messed up and i was getting increasingly messed up, you know, on a regular basis. and i didn’t think i could carry off the charade anymore. so i was i was constantly terrified that i would get caught out in some, you know, outrageous line. there were a lot of outrageous lies that i told to account for where i was supposed to be, but i wasn’t. and so it just, it was like this huge sort of tidal wave of stress building and building and building and building. i ended up shooting u cocaine within a year of that first hit on a crack pipe and by may of 1998 i couldn’t hold it together. i i was certain that i was gonna crash and everybody would find out.

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so i took a leave of absence from work and i told my partners that i would be back on the job my labour day. and i figure 3 months i’ll have enough time to get myself clean and sober with no stress, no distractions. and all i did was basically just continue to go downhill. so i was completely isolated, basically shooting up cocaine on a daily basis. and at one point, this executive from sleep country canada, yeah. is walking around here and the downtown east side trying to score drugs. yeah, yeah. i’ve, i’ve been in and out of the alleyways. and i had learned by that time that the way you can score drugs in almost any city in north america, as if you find us a street ****** they always have a drug connection. and so i would come down here and look for a ****** get her drug connection and then hook up with with that was a dealer. i mean, to hear that story to to,

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to look at you, to know who you were as this executive and to hear you came down to the downtown east side to find a ****** to find drugs is mind boggle. yeah. and yeah, i’ve, i’ve, i’ve been through the alleyways down here. i’ve been here like at, you know, 4 in the morning, have been stopped by the police down here. i had to go and basically bail out my, my girlfriend out of the brandies h1 night because she was in there buying drugs and some guy was basically holding her hostage. and i had to come down here and go up to the room and pay the guy $200 to let her go. so it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an incredible world that it’s just unbelievable. what would you describe as rock bottom for you? ohp boy. it was definitely the last three months of my using. i had collapsed some of the veins in my arm because i’d been using so much. so i was sitting like poking around like trying to find a, a vein, which is very painful. i would

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use until i passed out and i, i could be using for 24 or 48 hours straight. i would pass out. i get up the next day and say like i have to get my act together and i just the sort of the mental challenge of doing that was just overwhelming. so the solution was i’ll just get high again. and that’s, that’s what it was like. it was i was, i was hoping that i would overdose and then i that would solve my problems well, but i didn’t have the courage to kill myself. after more than 1000 days of being addicted to cocaine, gordon lounds, still the ceo of sleep country canada, turned to his friend and company cofounder to finally ask for help. two days past that, my deadline that i had set for myself, i broke down a phone, steve gone. and i said, look, you know, i’ve had some health problems, but what you don’t know is that i’ve got a cocaine problem and it’s really bad.

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and i thought that he was just gonna just blast off at me and being really upset with me and, and he really, he surprised me. he said, i’m really sorry. what can i do to help? so it was a was a kind of compassion that i, that i didn’t know existed and i didn’t, you know, believe was, was was i was, i was willing or i was able to accept it and, and really incredible even today. but in 1998, for him to have that compassionate view is, is extraordinary. you’re pretty honest in your book about a lot of things, including, and i hope you don’t mind this characterization. seems like you’re a bit of a jerk as you went through the recovery process. yeah, that’s probably true. i was just being in charge. i was used to people telling, you know, paying attention to what i said. i had a very competitive streak. and actually when when steve gunn drove me up to the friedman centre, he said, gore,

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do me a favor. just just, it’s not a competition. like you don’t have to prove you’re smarter than they are. and i had some challenges with that. and i was lucky enough they basically we’re going to kick me out of the treatment centre after my first two weeks because i was not behaving well. and they finally said, we’re going to give you a foot you in the care of doctor cooney, who’s the sort of chief medical officer. and he was the guy who handled the hard cases. and he absolutely leveled me. and i just he, he basically is one of the reasons i’m clean and sober. the there’s a debate going on in canada about harm reduction versus treatment now. and you’re not an addiction expert, but you are an expert on your own story. yeah. and so as you hear that, you know, should should people who are addicted be given access to clean drugs? should they not be enforced into treatment? there are all kinds of permutations there. yeah.

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what’s your view of that? my view is that if you can put an addict in touch with another human being who would be available when the addict decides that they need to turn their life around, then any way you put them in touch with that person, with that outside individual is a is a benefit. so whether it’s harm reduction, whether it’s treatment, whether it’s safe supply, to me it doesn’t matter as long as you’re putting the attic in touch with a human being who can be there for them when they’re ready to turn their life around. in 1998, while you were going through the throes of this, i was doing a lot of stories on the downtown east side, and i looked now here, and it looks the same as it did back then. yeah. will it ever change? oh, i used to be told that, you know, roughly 10% of the people who try to get clean and sober are successful, which is really, really depressing. and, and on its own. i understand

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that, you know, with some new meds that are available today, it’s up to sort of fifteen 2025%, but it’s still 8 percentage. and when you look at the combination of, of the, the homeless problems here, the mental health problems, the addiction problems, it’s, it’s i, i don’t understand how we’ll ever get out of it. i do know that i, i think a course solution starts with housing, because when you get people off the street and into housing, then they they regain some of their dignity and they have some hope that maybe they can turn their life around. you made a decision to write an incredibly candid book. you know, you didn’t hold anything back and, and your stories out there now for for everyone to read. what do you hope the impact of your story will be? the major reason i’ve put it out there was to let people know that addiction can happen to anyone at anytime in their life in any, you know, level of the social spectrum.

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and it can happen for any number of reasons. so no one is basically guaranteed that, you know, i’ll be ok. and so basically, you have to avoid the situations that i stepped into where i thought i was invincible. and you know, with the drugs out of the out there these days, you know, no one is, is, is is protected. so i wanted that message to get out there that it’s not just people that you see on the street in the downtown east side. it, it covers the whole spectrum and, and secondly, that no matter how messed up people are, there is always hope that you can turn your life around. and it’s never too late to make that decision to ask for help and accept the help. and the biggest, biggest challenge of the people have who are, who are addicts is basically asking for help. and i would refuse to ask for help. i just, you know, i was too proud. and pride can kill you, as they say. so what i did do was accept the help when it was offered,

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basically because i didn’t think i had a choice. so i was lucky in that sense. and you’re better now. yeah, yeah, you answer that almost too quickly. i’m better now. i’m much more humble. i’m incredibly grateful for the life that i’ve been able to get back to. i’ve rekindled and and basically fixed the relationship with my daughter, which i really seriously damaged. like when i got messed up, she was like 17 years old. and it’s one of the reasons i didn’t publish the book back 20 years ago, because i didn’t want to have it affect her. and so. so, yeah. my. what? my life is returned, you know, to somewhat normal. i’m now a recluse on vancouver island. so what better place to be? well, thank you for telling the story. it’s it’s a great read. and it’s really nice talking to you. yeah. it’s a pleasure. thank you.

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welcome back. i’m arshin shamila. we’re taking a deep dive into the drug crisis that has taken the lives of thousands of canadians. while opiate deaths fell in 2024,

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certain parts of the country have actually seen a rise in deaths linked to drug toxicity in 2025. at this toronto supervised consumption site, a decline in opioid deaths in canada doesn’t tell the whole story. they’ve been helping a growing number of people avoid the worst. we’re running to alleys, stairwells, on the streets, just running to respond to overdoses that are happening in public. a new report says opioid toxicity deaths in the country decreased by 17% from 2023 to 2024. it points to several factors, including changes to the drug supply. we know it’s a very dynamic, unregulated supply. we know that new substances emerge and then they disappear for a while. in bc, for example, there was less of the high potency opioid carfentanil found in drug samples last year, potentially making the supply there less deadly. while i’m really elated to see these reductions in overdose

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mortality, it’s quite disappointing to me that 1015 years into this generation defining public health crisis, we’re relying on drug trafficking organizations to decide whether people live or die. he and others say canada needs a safe, regulated drug supply to save lives because despite last year’s overall decline, opioid toxicity still killed more than 7000 people, and in quebec, newfoundland and northwest territories, deaths went up. maybe decrease in canada wide. it’s still an astronomically higher number than it was back in. 2017 experts say another thing driving the overall decrease speaks to the scope of the crisis. the people were most likely today are already. dead which? is. a very horrible and morbid thought in toronto. the provincial government recently shut down 4 supervised consumption sites because they were within 200 meters of schools or daycares. those remaining are scrambling.

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people are just feeling really abandoned, feeling really disappointed that these services that they had relied upon are now gone. the. report also says so far in 2025, emergency calls and deaths linked to drug toxicity are once again climbing in some parts of the country. allison northcott, cbc news, montreal. outreach workers are finding it difficult to keep up with the demand for support for those who use drugs. so for one alberta program, that means hitting the streets focused on stopping overdose deaths that have become all too common.

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thanks for joining us. we’ll end with taking a look at a nationwide hotline that offers support for people who are using drugs alone. the concept is meant to eliminate debts caused by drug toxicity. for more cbc reporting on the drug crisis, visit us on cbcnews.ca or check us out on the job app.

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good evening, norris. this is jody. how can i support you today? so i wanted to use a little bit of smoking. this is norse, or the national overdose response service. i’m here with cbc now. ok, you’re ok with going on speaker with me? ok, awesome. give me one second. ok, people call this anonymous hotline when they’re about to use drugs like fentanyl. ok, you go ahead. you get started. enjoy. an operators like jody will listen for signs of an overdose. how’s it hating? hating. good. yeah. this is her first call tonight. she’ll send dms if she suspects something is wrong. i feel like it’s a little bit stronger, so i thought i’d better call just to be sure. it’s scary. it’s scary because are they ok? are they ok? that is why it’s hard in the head sometimes. so as you know, i’m going to sit with you for at least 15 to 20 minutes. make sure that you’re good, ok?

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cbc news got exclusive access to nora’s and some of their calls. so glad that you called in to. it’s not about stopping drug use, but keeping people alive. here’s another caller. yeah, for sure. i have. embarrassing. most overdose deaths happen when someone uses alone. do you have any plans for this evening? and surprisingly, callers are not who you might think they are. some homework, counseling and stuff for criminology. oh, nice. nice. you’ve got, like athletes. you have bankers, people from the military that are that are calling in. these aren’t usually the people we think of that used drugs, right. but. but they are. it is a wide variety of people who are in school, in college, getting their masters. these are not folks experiencing homelessness, these are folks with jobs. and both kim ritchie and jodie are former drug users. the highest rates of overdose, to be honest with you in canada are men ages 16 to 60 that work in trades. i heard that there

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was a bad batch going around in my area. what are you using? most of the calls come from ontario, then alberta, bc and saskatchewan. the hotline is trying to get at that large group of people that wouldn’t use a safe injection site and is trying to keep their drug use hidden. doing ok from that choke are you? do you think you’re going to do another one with me? no, i don’t think i need to do nothing. learning to concentrate from my work. ohp for sure. with money from health canada, they’ve answered almost 20, 000 calls and responded to over 200 overdoses, 0 deaths. norris called me when i was in the middle of working saying faith is unresponsive in the basement tomorrow. o’toole’s daughter faith has overdosed at least three times. on the line overdosing socks. but the hotline was really useful, you know, because, like, you can get help,

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like babysitters, you know, tomorrow, let faith live and use at home. but insisted she called nors. before, when she didn’t call, i was worried constantly. every four or five hours. i know she’s going to use. and then i’d be messaging her. hey, you ok? you ok? you ok? oh, please message me. let me know you’re ok. like, panicking, panicking, panicking, panicking. i mean, of course i don’t want my child to use drugs. nobody does. but if they’re going to and i can’t make her stop, what can i do to help keep her as safe as possible? one, here we go. so this is actually, i think the first one. so there’s rebecca and me. kim helped start the hotline with her friend rebecca morris miller during the pandemic. and this is, like, the first time our work really went, like, wide, you know? the two met in narcotics anonymous. god, we were so cute. when everyone was stuck at home. overdose

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deaths surged. it was small. we didn’t have payment. we were working other jobs trying to make this thing just come together and like learning how to build something. the hotline started in 2020. rebecca had $1000 and a cell phone. i’m in owen sound to meet her sister who took it over after rebecca died from an overdose. you shall we set her drug of choice was fentanyl. so if that’s your drug of choice, it’s a hard rd. very, very dangerous rd. lisa morris miller says shame stopped rebecca from calling the hotline the night she died. how do you cope with that? like knowing that she created a service to make sure that people don’t use a loan, but then for herself to not have used with someone. i don’t know that i do cope with it honestly. like, i don’t know. i don’t know what that looks like. i know that becky was so innerly unsettled through her lifetime,

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and the only way i cope is by knowing that, hoping that at this stage of her journey that she’s at peace. in memory of her sister. lisa has helped norah’s grow, so we’ve got the emotional dumpster fire. this is probably our most popular shirt. even rebecca’s son errol helps by making swag. it’s one of the things that better helped me move on from the death. and so team norris is on a mission to challenge the idea of who is using drugs. so i just dropped you off some bags. there’s something to lock. so appreciate it, especially as drug use becomes more widespread, more unpredictable. the kid at 16 that is pop and perks off the street because he twisted his ankle in soccer and you’re going can’t get his oxy script anymore is not looking to die. they got a bad batch. roxies going to drop some stuff off here at our good friend lance who gets this stuff out into

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the community. the aren’t so focused on stopping drug use, just making it less harmful. you just want to make sure that we’re giving access to everybody that we can for this service because we just really don’t want people using loan. there’s a lot of people that talk about harm reduction and say that it only continues that cycle of drug use. what do you say to that? i’m not here to judge anybody on their path. i certainly don’t think that it initiates or continues substance use. it’s that inner pole that is very, very, very, very challenging to step away from. a lot of overdose prevention programs serve a different demographic. so this is the george spady. it’s a physical supervised consumption service site that supports people who are using substances alone and it’s usually men who go to these sites. it’s a very different demographic that we’re seeing using the line. most of them are are stably

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housed. all of them are still highly vulnerable. doctor monty ghosh says the majority of callers are female or transgender people. they prefer to go to these lines for a variety of reasons, one of which is stigma, one of which is safety. and 10% of all calls ask about recovery. they formed that alliance, if you may, which gets them comfortable to seeking help and entering recovery. so it’s a key intervention from that lens to help build trust, help build confidence, help build comfort in seeking supports. i love this one little peanut face. you’re so cute. tomorrow is terrified she will lose her daughter before she gets into recovery, and joyful faith isn’t living at home anymore so she doesn’t call nora’s as often. do you want to stop using drugs? yeah, i i guess that’s the the goal. these were the busy good times. tomorrow. hopes that’s true.

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i’d love her to be at home where she’s safer and loved. of course, i’d love her to go back to school and entering recovery, whatever recovery looks like for her bubble rhino. you know, i’m just the mom. good evening, norris. this is jody. how can i support you? here’s another caller. he’s just finished work for the day. what are you using on the line with me? correct, correct. should you get it tested? no, no, not tested. ok, alright. just do me a favor. just start low, go slow. ok? how do you know norah’s is working? oh i love this question. because people are calling and they’re not dying. it’s really that simple. be different from normal. ok feel pretty careful. yeah. awesome. each call a chance to try and keep people alive. i was on the streets for a few years. like i’m not like

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ashamed of my past, but it just because i bring myself back to how lonely it was. that’s why i’m so happy being here at norris too, because i had no one has to feel alone while they use right. thank you very much. ok, no problem. bye. [♪♪♪] >> why is paris always burning? >> why is paris always burning? >> why do they have to pay $50 million? >> does public transit really >> does public transit really need more police officers? need more police officers? >> how did this p.r. campaign go >> how did this p.r. campaign go so horribly wrong? so horribly wrong? >> it is now believed the titan >> it is now believed the titan was destroyed, here’s how it was destroyed, here’s how it happened. happened. [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪] [♪♪♪]

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[♪♪♪] >> andrew: when the world’s two

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