Illicit-drug deaths up in B.C. and remain highest in Canada

B.C.’s overdose deaths spiked in March and April reaching the same heights recorded more than a year earlier.

The B.C. Coroners Service says 117 people died last month, matching the number of fatalities in March 2019. There has been a steady decline in deaths every month since then.

However, the service says 112 deaths in March and 117 in April mark the first time since late 2018 that the province has recorded more than 100 fatalities two month in a row.

The service reports 78 deaths in January, and 75 in February this year

More than 4,700 people have died of overdoses since the B.C. government declared a public health emergency in early 2016.

Victoria has had the third highest number of drug overdose deaths this year, with 28, behind Vancouver (90) and Surrey (48).

There were 10 overdose deaths in Victoria last month, up from nine in March and four in April 2019. The Victoria deaths represented half of the overdose deaths recorded in the Island Health region, which recorded 20 deaths in April and 18 in March, up from 14 and 15 in the same months last year, respectively.

Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe says efforts since late March to improve access to a safer supply of drugs in B.C. are encouraging, but the death rate from illicit drugs is still the highest in Canada.

“We continue to recommend a regulated, evidence-based, supportive treatment and recovery system as an important pillar in preventing future deaths.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has maintained that decriminalization of drugs is not on his agenda.

Since late March, the province has been providing people at risk of overdose with a take-home supply of a prescribed alternative to potentially deadly street drugs over concerns about a more toxic drug supply during the pandemic.

B.C. also launched a free app called Lifeguard last week to help prevent overdose deaths. It serves as a check-in system that requires drug users to respond at certain time intervals in order to relay that they are OK.

It’s meant to be opened by users before they take their dose, the Provincial Health Services Authority said in a statement.