In the month of June, 184 more people have lost their lives due to drug poisoning which stems from the toxic drug crisis BC is facing.
Cumulatively, over 1,200 people have died from toxic drug usage in the first six months of this year.
235 of those deaths have taken place on Vancouver Island — 80 in Victoria, 66 in Nanaimo and 89 in other island municipalities.
At this rate, 2023 is on track to topple last year’s record for how many lives were lost due to this crisis. Since 2013, every year’s toxic drug death toll outdoes the last.
“British Columbia is continuing to lose community members at record rates as a result of the toxicity of the unregulated drug market,” said Lisa Lapointe, Chief Coroner with the BC Coroners Service.
“Illicit fentanyl continues to drive the crisis, which is causing deaths in large and small municipalities, towns and cities across the province.”
“This health emergency is not confined to one neighbourhood or one demographic. Anyone accessing an illicit substance is at risk of serious harm or death,” Lapointe added.
Fentanyl has been determined to be the main driver of the unrelenting death toll during this crisis with over 90% of this June’s deaths having the drug present in toxicology tests.
It isn’t just fentanyl though. The BC Coroners Service says that in most of the drug poisoning deaths last month, tests revealed mixed drug use in those who have lost their lives.
Some notable stats regarding June’s toxic drug deaths are that most of the deaths occurred indoors, most of those who lost their lives were between the ages of 30 and 59-years-old, men were 70% more likely to die from drug poisoning and this is now the leading cause of death in BC.
Since April 2016 when the province declared a state of emergency due to the toxic drug crisis, at least 12,509 people’s lives have been claimed.
The province has been taking a harm reduction approach to battling this crisis, decriminalizing people carrying small amounts of illicit drugs in an effort to destigmatize drug use. Their hope in this effort was that people might be more willing to test their drugs to avoid using toxic or ‘laced’ drugs.
The BC Coroners Service who reports the lives lost monthly are now calling for the province to do more. They say that safe supply programs are imperative to curbing these numbers.
“As coroners, we speak every day to families who are grieving the loss of a loved one,” Lapointe said.
“Our agency continues to recommend rapid expansion of a safer drug supply throughout the province to reduce the significant harms associated with the toxic illicit drug market and prevent future deaths.”
