City drops off drug-deaths list

After a record-setting number of fatal drug overdoses last year in Penticton, the city has now fallen off the list of B.C.’s deadliest communities.

There were 21 people who died of suspected drug overdoses in the city last year, the 11th-highest tally of all B.C. communities, and up from a record high of 16 in 2018, according to the BC Coroners Service.

The service’s quarterly reports, which track Canada’s other major health crisis, only contain the number of drug-related deaths for the 15 communities with the highest numbers. Penticton was on the list last year, but fell off in the first quarter of 2020.

While he welcomed the news, “I would be a little hesitant to take my foot off the gas right now,” said Matthew Baran, executive director of the Ooknakane Friendship Centre in Penticton.

The centre offers a variety of programming at its Ellis Street location, but also does outreach work, including distributing meals from a food truck and handing out harm reduction kits and other personal items to people on the streets.

“We’re still seeing the loss of lives, and these are individuals that frontline workers, youth workers, substance abuse workers have been connecting with over the last few years and are still feeling the loss,” said Baran.

The downside of falling off the top-15 list is the loss of statistics for Penticton, making it harder to spot trends, he continued.

Baran is confident, however, that support programs for homelessness, mental illness and addictions offered by service agencies like his, SOWINS, OneSky, Interior Health and even the RCMP are paying off.

“The reality is wholesale change doesn’t come overnight. It took us a number of years to get where were at and it will take a number of years to get out of it,” said Baran.

“We have to stay the course right now. We have to see the trend (of fewer overdose deaths) last at least a year at a minimum, because if we let our foot off the gas now, it can back-track.”

The BC Coroners Service doesn’t release overdose death statistics for communities outside the top 15 ostensibly to protect the privacy of the dead.

While she couldn’t speak to the BC Coroners Service’s data, an Interior Health official confirmed overdoses are trending down in the city.

“What we can say is that there have been less overdoses in the first quarter of this year in Penticton, when we compare to each quarter in the last year,” said Dr. Karen Goodison, an IH medical health officer.

She acknowledged Penticton dropping out of the top 15 looks like good news “on the surface…but we also had an alert on the number of 911 calls related to overdoses recently.”

Goodison said the alert was issued May 1 and suggests a particularly toxic batch of drugs was on the streets.

She reminded drug users to test their supply beforehand, start with smaller than their usual amount, carry a naloxone kit and have a buddy present – but at a safe distance.

In its effort to block the spread of COVID19, the Ooknakane Friendship Centre has started delivering harm reduction kits to users’ homes.

“Most of the overdoses we experience in the Okanagan, they’re not street individuals, they’re working class, blue-collar males, mid-20s to late-30s,” said Baran.

“While (street people) are the most visible and the public can shake their fist at them, it’s the people in our neighbourhoods, who have houses, who are most at risk.”

B.C. recorded a total of 113 suspected or confirmed drug-related deaths in March, the first monthly total to top 100 since March 2019, according to the BC Coroners Service’s latest release. The powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl was detected in 83% of victims.

Through the first quarter, Vancouver recorded 60 overdose deaths, the most anywhere in B.C.

Tied for 15th were Fort St. John and

Vernon, with four each.

There were a total of 20 deaths in the Okanagan over that same period, 11 of them in Kelowna.