Fentanyl mostly responsible for new height in B.C. illicit drug deaths
VICTORIA — More people died from illicit drug overdoses in British Columbia in the first eight months of this year than all of 2016.
The coroner’s service says the 1,013 people who died from overdoses from January to the end of August surpasses a record 982 deaths last year.
The latest figures for 2017 show fentanyl was detected either alone or with another drug in more than 80 per cent of the deaths. In 2012, fentanyl was detected in just four per cent of overdose deaths.
The province declared a state of emergency last year and took a number of steps to try and reduce the number of overdoses.