Lambton's Medical Officer of Health says decriminalizing personal drug use is a conversation worth having on a national level.
Dr. Sudit Ranade is responding to a recent recommendation made by his counterpart in Toronto.
Dr. Eileen de Villa notes that criminalizing personal drug use "forces people into unsafe drug use practices and creates barriers to seeking help."
Dr. Ranade says more needs to be done to prevent the sale and distribution of these substances and ramp up harm reduction efforts.
"I think it's an important conversation to have, I don't think that just decriminalization is going to get us to addressing the root cause of drug use," says Ranade. "I think that there are lots of other kinds of interventions that we need to look at in order to do that."
Dr. Ranade says Lambton Public Health will be working on a community-wide drug and alcohol strategy this fall.
According to a report by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, in 2016 over 180,000 people were prescribed opioid drugs to treat pain in an area that spans Sarnia-Lambton, Chatham-Kent, Windsor-Essex, London-Middlesex, St. Thomas-Elgin.
The numbers include 21,400 residents in Sarnia-Lambton.
Locally, there were 165 opioid-related emergency room visits, including 47 poisonings resulting in five deaths.