Counting the cost of British Columbia’s toxic drug crisis

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

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