New tranquillizer in Victoria's drug supply has no antidote, and Naloxone can't touch it

Victoria's $16.9-million push against street disorder has hit a snag nobody planned for: a drug that doesn't respond to Naloxone.

Kerrilee Jones, the city's assistant director of community safety and bylaw services, told council Thursday there's been a noticeable rise in medetomidine, an animal tranquillizer, showing up in the illicit supply. Unlike an opioid overdose, there's no antidote. Health providers can only keep someone stable until the drug wears off on its own.

Jones said the sedation is severe enough that outreach workers struggle to get people alert enough for food, medicine or a shelter bed. Of the money spent so far, the largest chunk, $7.1 million, has gone to enforcement, including 12 new bylaw officers and funding for nine extra Victoria police officers on foot patrol.

Staff estimate 180 to 210 people remain unhoused on the streets, concentrated around the 900-block of Pandora Avenue. Mayor Marianne Alto pointed to 75 people housed by a relocation coordinator as one measure of progress in what she called the first year of a multi-year plan.