Toxic drugs ‘an epidemic,’ Saskatoon fire battalion chief says on ride-along

As we piled into Saskatoon Fire Department Battalion Chief Dwayne Jobson’s truck, we set out to learn more about how the growing toxic drug crisis is causing devastation in Saskatoon.

Jobson took Global News on a ride-along to get a look at the crisis first-hand. A call came through for a response to an overdose within a few minutes of driving through the city.

Paramedics and firefighters were at the scene as we hopped out of the car.

“A lot of it comes down to what drug is on board. Sometimes it can come out of it fairly quickly, within seconds, and other times it takes a long time,” Jobson said.

While there are no official stats for 2026, he says the department is averaging around five to six drug-related calls per day.

“The ones that are reported, there’ll be lots that go unreported because they have their own kits with them sometimes, so the group they’re with will administer the Narcan or naloxone and then it doesn’t get reported,” Jobson said.

In 2025, the department responded to an average of 6.8 overdoses daily. That number peaked at this time last year when a deadly drug supply pushed it above 30.

“During that time frame, there were a lot of drug alerts that came out that gave us some detail on what was in the pills that were being taken,” Jobson said.

Jobson said he is worried something similar might happen again this year following two recent drug alerts in Saskatoon for medetomidine, a naloxone-resistant veterinary sedative.

“Whenever you have drug alerts that come out with that sort of information, it really poses a danger to anyone that may be a drug user and knowing that it’s going to be a little tougher to have a better outcome at times.”

Jobson says things have changed over his three-plus decades on the job.

“Back when I first started, there was really no such thing as an overdose. We’d have issues with alcohol and a few party drugs, as they would say. By now, with the pill crisis, it’s an epidemic,” Jobson said.

He says part of the reason for the increase is the city’s growing population.

To meet the new demand, the city has recently approved two new stations and the hiring of 20 new firefighters for one of the stations.

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