Police, health officials team up to battle recent spike in illicit drug overdoses

The B.C. government has announced it is forming a group of experts to combat the recent rise in illicit drug overdoses in the province.

At St. Paul’s Hospital on Wednesday, Premier Christy Clark said the task force would be headed by provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall and director of police services Clayton Pecknold.

The new group will work closely with the B.C. Drug Overdose and Alert Partnership and police agencies to improve practices to prevent overdoses.

The premier said the province will act “immediately” on its recommendations.

“It is urgent that we start this work because lives are being lost every day, and this is something that can touch every single family in British Columbia,” Clark said.

In April, Kendall declared a public health emergency after 201 overdose deaths in the first three months of 2016.

Despite efforts to curb the rising death toll by expanding datasharing between health services and increasing distribution of the overdose treatment drug naloxone, 371 fatal illicit-drug overdoses had been recorded by June 30, with the synthetic opioid fentanyl detected in 60 per cent of cases, according to B.C. Coroners Service data.

The province will work with the federal government to establish more supervised-consumption sites in the province. Bill C-2, the Respect for Communities Act, introduced by the federal conservatives last year, has long hampered efforts to set up such services.

The province will also pressure the federal government to restrict access to pill presses and tableting machines, limit access to the materials used to manufacture fentanyl and escalate charges for the importation and trafficking of fentanyl.

A testing service will be established to help drug users determine if their drugs contain adulterants such as fentanyl.