North Bay’s Police Chief is calling for a national task force on dealing with the opioid crisis.

Chief Scott Tod was recently a part of a panel discussion at the recent Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police annual meeting.

He says he spoke about lessons learned in policing and how they’ve learned to better collaborate with other government and community agencies.

“What I’m calling for is a national task force that does a massive data collection in regards to what do we know about deaths that have occurred as a result of the opioid crisis in the last five years, as well as the near-deaths that happened in our communities, that aren’t so well recorded,” he says.

Tod says it’s time to look at doing things differently around addiction and how they respond as law enforcement.

He also says having outside agencies look at the issue is key.

“Have someone else look at the problem, to remove the biases, some of the systemic issues that policing have right now, around costs, around resources. Have someone else look at the issue to see what other methods they can come up with for us to be successful,” Tod says.

He says they know they won’t be successful in charging everyone or finding all the drugs, all the time, so it’s time for a national strategy with police and other community partners.

 

(File photo by station staff)

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