Between 2008 and 2014, 124 people in Greater Sudbury died from drug toxicity.
In 2015, Greater Sudbury Police laid 1,580 drug-related charges.
Those numbers are at the heart of the city's new community drug strategy and the website the Sudbury and District Health Unit has launched to help promote that strategy.
The health unit has partnered with Sudbury Police and nearly 50 community organizations to launch a comprehensive community drug strategy that focuses on health promotion, harm reduction, treatment, enforcement and sustaining relationships with partners that can tackles drug misuse.
Dr. Penny Sutcliffe, the health unit's medical officer of health, said she hopes the new community drug strategy website will help start conversations around drug addiction and ways for people to access help.
“There are underlying reasons why people often turn to drug use,” she said.
By addressing social determinants of health, like poverty and access to health-care services, the health unit and its partners can address drug abuse.
Abuse of prescription drugs is a particularly big problem in the community, said Sutcliffe.
Of the 124 people who died of drug overdoses between 2008 and 2014, 108 of those deaths were due to prescription drugs.
Sutcliffe said it's important for people to return any prescription medications they no longer need to their local pharmacy.
From a policing perspective, Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen said alcohol poses the most problems in the community.
While police laid 1,580 drug-related charges last year, Pedersen said that number only scratches the surface of the toll drug addiction and abuse has on the criminal justice system.
He said crimes like break and enters, for example, are often committed to help support a person's drug addiction, but are not directly listed as drug-related charges.
Pedersen said the police service works more closely with community partners like the health unit to address the root causes of drug addiction, rather than focus only on enforcement.
“By the time we get to enforcement it's too late,” he said.
A prescription drug drop off Sudbury Police hosted with the OPP, for example, had record levels of participation from the community, Pedersen said.
