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  • Create Date October 6, 2025
  • Last Updated October 6, 2025

Opioid Use, Related Harms, and Access to Treatment Among First Nations in Ontario Annual Update 2013 – 2023

Opioid-related harms continue to be a national public health crisis in Canada that disproportionately affect First Nations People and communities. Higher rates of opioid-related toxicity and death among First Nations People have been linked to colonization, anti-Indigenous racism, persistent barriers to accessing quality healthcare services, and the continued trauma from residential schools and the child welfare system. This report and its previous iterations represent an ongoing commitment between the Chiefs of Ontario (COO) and Ontario Drug Policy Research Network (ODPRN) to generate evidence-based, culturally informed, and timely information on how this crisis continues to impact First Nations People and communities. Over the past several years, COO, ODPRN, and ICES have been collaborating to study opioid prescribing, access to treatment, and opioid-related harms among First Nations People in Ontario.

In 2013, the Chiefs in Assembly passed Resolution 13/10, Prescription Opioid Surveillance, which mandated COO to collaborate with researchers on opioid-related studies and led to the 2017 report, Opioid Use among First Nations in Ontario. In 2018, Resolution 20/18 mandated the continuation and expansion of this collaboration, which led to the creation of two 2021 reports entitled Opioid Use, Related Harms, and Access to Treatment among First Nations in Ontario, 2013 - 20195 and Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Opioid-Related Poisoning among First Nations in Ontario and the 2023 annual update to the Opioid Use, Related Harms, and Access to Treatment among First Nations in Ontario report,7 as well as a CIHR grant supporting the ongoing collaboration between COO and ODPRN to explore the impact of the opioid crisis among First Nations. COO and ODPRN will be providing regular updates to these reports to ensure that communities have access to the data needed to make informed decisions about programs and services necessary to support healing.