People with lived experience of addiction are helping an Ontario city tackle its overdose crisis

Parked in front of a trap house, where people often go to use drugs, Shauna Pinkerton rifles through her trunk, putting together a bag of harm-reduction supplies.

Pinkerton has decades of lived experience using substances, and is now on her own journey of recovery from addiction. 

She knows people in that house are going to use whether she's there or not. So Pinkerton says she'd rather they have clean supplies, to prevent the spread of disease, and access to naloxone, a life-saving drug that temporarily reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

The illicit drug supply is becoming more toxic and unpredictable right across northern Ontario, like many parts of Canada, and experts say it's leading to more overdoses and more deaths.

But unlike other, larger communities, Pinkerton's hometown of Dryden, Ont. — a city of 7,400 people located 300 kilometres west of Thunder Bay — doesn't have important resources like an emergency shelter, a detox centre, or a safe injection site.

WATCH | Shauna tells her own story of addiction and recovery:

Faced with that reality, Pinkerton says she'll do whatever it takes to save the lives of her community members.

"I definitely see this as a turning point. If we do not get resources in here soon, we're just going to see more and more overdoses. We're going to see a lot more death and a lot more despair."

Pinkerton has been doing this for years on a volunteer basis, but recently, she has been hired part-time as a community support worker for Thunder Bay-based agency Elevate NWO.

It's part of a new program where people with lived experience of addiction are working in small towns and cities across northwestern Ontario, building trust and offering harm-reduction supplies to those who use substances, in an effort to stem the rising tide of addiction sweeping across the region.

Walking into the house that she's visited dozens of times as a community support worker, Pinkerton carries a new harm-reduction tool: fentanyl test strips, which can identify the presence of fentanyl in unregulated drugs, whether they're injectable, powders or pills.

One of the people living at the house hands her a used pipe in the dimly lit living room, and Pinkerton starts measuring water using a cooker — a container used for mixing and heating drugs —  flushing the residue from the pipe into a sterile cup. 

After stirring, she places one end of the test strip into the mixture. One line appears.

"Oh yeah, it's definitely positive for fentanyl. So just be aware of what you're smoking," Pinkerton cautions the man before giving him a hug and leaving the bag of supplies.