Drug strategy shutdown means changes for community drug alerts
Posted Dec 2, 2025 06:40:12 AM.
Last Updated Dec 3, 2025 09:57:59 AM.
The Waterloo Region Integrated Drug Strategy (WRIDS) is officially shutting down, changing how community drug alerts will be sent out.
The Overdose Monitoring, Alert and Response System (OMARS) will now be headed up by Region of Waterloo Public Health (ROW Public Health) instead, as WRIDS is closing both its website and social media channels.
“Region of Waterloo Public Health has worked closely with the WRIDS and harm reduction community partners to transition the information to the Region of Waterloo website, and social media accounts,” ROW Public Health said in a statement to 570 NewsRadio.
The move comes after the WRIDS steering committee recommended the region cut off key funding to a coordinator position for the organization back in June, stating services offered by the drug strategy were already being offered through other local work groups and regional initiatives.
“Given that much of the work pertaining to the four pillars of our drug strategy is actively occurring through these new tables and initiatives, the steering committee concluded that the resources of everybody at the table would be most effectively utilized in supporting the existing efforts,” Rhonda Nicholls, director of Strategy, Performance, and Partnerships with ROW Public Health, said.
The move initially garnered pushback from members of the community, with Michael Parkinson, a volunteer with Waterloo Region Drug Action Team (WR DAT), saying at the time that “the region is pulling the funding and replacing it with nothing.”
He said that he understood that the organization had some structural concerns, saying that it had become “very much corporate, top-down, rather than bottom-up community-based,” but stated that there was no benefit in removing a system that was working to help prevent overdoses and drug-related deaths during an ongoing drug crisis.
A statement provided by a regional spokesperson said, “The Waterloo Region Integrated Drug Strategy (WRIDS) Steering Committee was made up of community partners. Over the past year, they had many discussions about the future of the strategy. After careful review, the Steering Committee decided the best way to advance the various components of the drug strategy (e.g. prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement) was through new working groups and targeted initiatives that had been established over the past year.”
While the official move of OMARS to ROW Public Health was set for Dec. 1, its website had already begun the process of detailing those drug alerts prior to that date.
“OMARS community drug alerts will be shared on the Region of Waterloo Public Health’s social media channels,” the notice of changes states. “Subscribers to OMARS alerts will not see a disruption in service and will continue receiving alert notifications through the Public Health webpage.”
For anyone looking to stay up-to-date with those community drug alerts, notifications can be set through ROW Public Health’s website or social media channels.
Those social pages can be found @ROWPublicHealth on Facebook, Instagram, as well as Twitter/X.
