Grim year for Kelowna
9 more people died in 2020 from ODs than the previous benchmark
Sixty-one people in Kelowna died in 2020 of an illicit drug overdose, according to year-end figures from the B.C. Coroners Service.
That was the highest number of such fatalities on record, eclipsing the old mark of 52 in 2017.
Across the Okanagan, there were 143 deaths from illicit drug overdoses. That was the second-highest annual number, after the 155 such fatalities valleywide in 2017.
Almost six times more people died in Kelowna from illegal drug overdoses last year compared to the average annual number for such fatalities of 11 in the years between 2010 and 2014.
The B.C. government declared a public health emergency five years ago because of the illegal drug overdose crisis.
Across B.C. in 2020, 1,716 people lost their lives due to an illegal drug overdose, the worst year on record, and up 74% from the 984 such fatalities recorded in 2019.
More people died of illegal drug overdoses last year in B.C. than from car crashes, suicides, murders and prescription drug causes, combined.
Illegal drug overdose deaths rose in 2020 partly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, chief coroner Lisa Lapointe says.
“The impacts of COVID-19 highlighted the immensely precarious situation of those experiencing problematic substance use in our province,” Lapointe said in a government news bulletin.
She says “decades of criminalization,” as well as an increasingly toxic supply of street drugs, and lack of treatment services have also contributed to the soaring number of illegal drug overdoses.
Those with addictions should be given access to safer drugs rather than having to rely on street sources of unpredictable toxicity, says a spokeswoman for Moms Stop the Harm, an advocacy group that calls for changes in drug policy.
“There is no other disorder or condition besides substance-use disorder in which we force people to access the medicine they require on a street corner and manufactured by the minions of organized crime,” said Leslie McBain, the group’s executive director.
The greatest number of illegal drug facilities in 2020 were in Vancouver (408), Surrey (214), Victoria (122), Abbotsford (65) and Kelowna (61).
The highest rates of illegal drug overdoses, with fatalities compared to an area’s total population, were in Hope, Vancouver, Keremeos, Prince George and Lillooet.
Across the Interior Health region, the rate of illegal drug overdoses was exactly the same as the provincial rate, with 33 deaths per 100,000 of population.