Getting safe-injection sites open as soon as possible and rethinking a police decision to not carry the fentanyl antidote are new goals in Toronto’s fight against a deadly overdose crisis.

Those were among initiatives agreed upon in an emergency meeting convened by Mayor John Tory after six suspected overdose deaths since the weekend, including two teens found dead in an Etobicoke highrise Wednesday.

“We’ve seen the number of people dying due to overdose increasing every year for 10 years,” Councillor Joe Cressy, head of the city’s drug prevention strategy, told reporters after the meeting. “Unfortunately this crisis (is) now escalating rapidly . . . We know as a city that these deaths are preventable.”

Participants, who included senior police, fire paramedic and public health officials, reviewed “the work that is being done through the overdose action plan and also to identify where we can scale up and ratchet up the work,” Cressy said.

“Every day lost is a potential life lost so more needs to be done and can be done.”

Cressy said Tory plans to ask Premier Kathleen Wynne for provincial approval for bar and restaurant owners to distribute naloxone kits and receive overdose training. In the meantime, he said, the city will work with neighbourhood merchant groups to “roll out training” on how to use the kits.

Opioid-related overdoses are believed last year to have killed more than 2,400 Canadians — hundreds of them Ontarians — triggering emergency plans by provincial and local governments to reduce the needless deaths. Traffickers sometimes mix fentanyl, a hyper-toxic painkiller, into other drugs.

In a news release after the meeting, Tory said they agreed to:

Ask police to consider the targeted distribution of naloxone to some officers. Previously, the police said paramedics carrying it was enough although OPP officers will carry it.

Speed up the planned autumn opening of three supervised injection sites where drug users can safely inject.

Get better at sharing overdose information and tracking if paramedics used naloxone while treating people who overdosed.

Consider making an emergency bulk purchase of naloxone for quicker distribution to all city staff who might use it.

Increase training for firefighters working in areas with the most overdoses.

Increase public education. That could include a campaign to tell Torontonians anyone can get free naloxone kits — nasal spray or injectable — and instructions at any pharmacy.

There were 79 suspected overdose patients in Toronto emergency wards in the last week of July alone.

Dr. Eileen De Villa, Toronto’s medical officer of health, said after the meeting city divisions are co-operating well on the “complex” problem.

Overdose deaths are not new, she said, but the city is seeing a spike involving substances including opioids.

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“We feel it warrants further investigation, further action on the overdose action plan that we already have in place.”

With files from Betsy Powell.

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