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Police are dealing with a prairie fire of methamphetamine use which is rapidly overtaking fentanyl as the drug of choice for many.

Opioid use continues to be a public-health crisis with just under 4,000 deaths across Canada in 2017 and over 3,000 in 2016.

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But officers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta say they’re worried about crystal meth as a narcotic of choice.

“The meth problem is happening across the Prairies. They’re seeing that opioid use is now being replaced with meth,” said Lethbridge police Chief Rob Davis.

“What I’m hearing anecdotally is so many people were dying on the fake fentanyl that there’s a perception out there that meth is safer — still dangerous, but safer.”

Meth, followed by heroin and fentanyl, is the top drug consumed at the supervised consumption site in Lethbridge. Davis recently watched people coming out of the site.

The meth problem is happening across the Prairies. They're seeing that opioid use is now being replaced with meth

“There were some who looked like the Time-Life commercials for songs of the ’60s, where everybody’s doing their interpretive dancing, and then I’m watching people who just had that walk of rage, just stomping down the street with all that anger.”