Five dying daily in B.C. due to illicit drugs

Doctors and nurses are being asked to support British Columbia’s safe supply drug program and other substance use measures, as an average of five people a day die from illicit drug overdoses, the B.C. Coroners Service says.

There were 162 overdose deaths in B.C. last month, more than double the 75 recorded in October last year.

The number of deaths in each health authority is at or near the highest monthly total ever recorded, the coroners service said Wednesday in a news release.

Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the supply of street drugs and is disrupting access to harmreduction services such as supervised injection sites.

“We encourage clinicians to support those at risk of overdose by prescribing safe supply and reducing the numbers of lives lost to toxic substances,” she said in the statement.

The coroners service continues to advocate for an accessible, evidence-based and accountable treatment and recovery system for drug users, Lapointe added.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry authorized registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses to prescribe pharmaceutical alternatives to street drugs in September.

Before that, only doctors and nurse practitioners were able to prescribe drugs, including substitute medications for illicit-drug users.

But advocates for drug users say there is still a lack of medical personnel prescribing safe, prescription alternatives to illicit drugs.

“They’re not prescribing to the extent they should be,” said Karen Ward, a drug rights advocate and a drug policy and poverty reduction consultant with the City of Vancouver.

“They need to be prescribing assertively and doing outreach,” she said in an interview.

Ward said drug users and advocates feel as if the relentless death toll is like an “ongoing tidal wave.”