Northern Health is now offering toxic drug alerts through text.
Designed to provide timely and up to date information, the service will send out text alerts as they’re established in an effort to prevent drug poisonings and deaths.
Subscribers can also submit anonymous information like dates and locations of drug overdoses, physical descriptions of the drug and packaging, where the substance was purchased, and what it was believed to be.
Submitting the firsthand information can be done by texting the keyword OD, and will then be used by Harm Reduction teams to improve the alerts.
Northern Health Chief Medical officer Jong Kim says they hope the service empowers people who use drugs to do so more safely.
Across the Interior and Fraser and Island Health, the system already serves 2,300 subscribers and has issued over 30 alerts since its launch in May 2022.
People who use drugs and other community members are encouraged to opt-in to the service by texting the word JOIN to the number 253787.
