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If five pedestrians died at a busy crosswalk in a 72-hour period, or five people died in a week from toxic lettuce, the clocks would stop, as the poets say, the authorities would cluster, everything menial set aside.

But five sons or fathers or mothers who die from drug overdoses in three or four days are, pretty much, a statistic, a sad tally of self-infliction. Maybe five more will die next week, for all we know, for all we’re doing differently today.

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(And, indeed, it was in London, Ont. — not Ottawa — where five more men have just died in a six-day period, all of suspected overdoses, prompting the police chief to make a public appeal.)

The cluster of overdoses that struck Ottawa in late March has frighteningly occurred across North America. That it appears to involve mixing a fentanyl-type drug into “regular” cocaine is the most alarming aspect, as it exposes a whole population of occasional users to deadly possibilities. The demise of a promising musician and a middle-aged HVAC operator attest to the scary, new territory.