By Canadian Press

Counting the cost of British Columbia’s toxic drug crisis

Sep 28, 2024 | 7:02 AM

The toxic drug crisis is one of the most contentious and widely debated issues ahead of British Columbia’s provincial election on Oct. 19.

Here’s a look at the provincial statistics on toxic drug deaths to July 31, according to the BC Coroners Service.

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Deaths since declaration of public health emergency in April 2016: 15,140

2024 deaths: 1,365

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2024 deaths involving detection of fentanyl: 83 per cent

2024 deaths with smoking as mode of drug consumption: 68 per cent

2024 victims who were men: 73 per cent

Deaths per day in 2024: 6.4

July 2024 deaths: 192, a 15 per cent decrease from July 2023.

Sept. 24, 2024: “One of the huge challenges with the prescribed safe-supply program is that there just aren’t enough physicians to prescribe, so as I said, there are estimates, reliable estimates, that there are about 225,000 people in our province using substances, unregulated substances. Fewer than 2 per cent of those people have access to a regulated supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, B.C.’s former chief coroner.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.

The Canadian Press