Guelph police responded to three overdoses this weekend and suspect opioids as the causes.

According to the ongoing investigation, police say the people using the drugs believed they were using cocaine, but the symptoms were similar to opioid overdoses.

Police say opioids such as fentanyl are being found more and more in drugs like cocaine.

While they discourage the use of illicit street drugs, they do warn anyone who does use them to go to the supervised injection site.

They also recommend for people to have naloxone and a second person present in the case of an overdose.

“Safety is the priority for us,” said Sgt. Chris Probst of the Guelph Police Service. “Certainly there have been a numerous amount of deaths as a result of fentanyl. As a community, we have to look at things differently rather than ‘this is bad so then you get charged.’ Obviously that’s a formula that doesn’t work and it’s not working for our community.”

Police say there were similar overdose cases in the area a few weekends ago.

They saw two overdoses and one near-overdose linked to purple fentanyl in a 45 minute period.