COVID-19 isolation leads to big spike in drug overdoses
B.C.'s deadly resurgence of drug overdoses could worsen as COVID-19, the province's overlapping public-health emergency, continues to require residents to stay isolated from others, the operator of a Burnaby treatment centre fears.
Many substance users already had a tendency to “hide out from life,” and the coronavirus restrictions are likely to increase this “disease of isolation” for people with existing dependencies — and could potentially result in more people using drugs or alcohol in the coming months, predicted Miranda Vecchio, executive director of Charlford House Society for Women.
“More and more I am seeing people really coming apart at the seams from their current circumstances ... I see a lot of people's mental health issues start to come to the surface,” Vecchio said Sunday.
“I'm concerned about this next wave of consequences that will result from people using drugs and alcohol to self-soothe. I'm concerned as the need increases: how are we going to meet that need for everybody? It becomes a larger concern as time goes on.”
Deaths linked to B.C.'s overdose public health emergency, declared in 2016, were on the decline until the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early March, and now the province has recorded the deadliest two months for overdoses since late 2018. In March, 112 people died of illicit-drug toxicity and 117 more died in April, a massive jump from 2019's monthly average of 81.5 deaths, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.
So far in 2020, 83 per cent of illicit drug deaths happened inside (roughly two-thirds of those in private residences, and the rest in other residential settings such as social housing and shelters), while just 12 per cent of deaths were outside, in locations such as vehicles, sidewalks, and parks.
An increasing number of women have recently contacted Charlford House.
“There is a lot more demand right now. We usually only have three or four people on our wait-list … but the bottom line is the list is getting longer,” she said. “Just seeing the need compounding so much right now it worries me, it really worries me.”
Still, Vecchio believes providing hope is extremely important, and encourages anyone with mounting drug and alcohol dependencies to ask a friend or agency for help. And she would like to see an increase in funding for residential programs and social service agencies that provide safe havens to users.
Last week, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry acknowledged that COVID-19 restrictions pose “an added challenge” to drug users, and said “there is a lot of work being done” to support them: Officials continue to ensure “a safer supply of drugs” as restricted supply chains have raised toxicity levels of street drugs; she would like more clinicians to offer pharmaceutical alternatives to illicit drugs; and she is advocating for the decriminalization of people possessing small amounts of drugs for personal use, in part to reduce stigma.
“At this time of physical distancing and isolating, particularly in the last few months where we've been isolating at home, this is a very risky situation
I am seeing people really coming apart at the seams.”
Miranda Vecchio
for people who end up using alone because they are afraid or are ashamed to talk to their family or their friends or their close circle about their drug use,” Henry said last week.
Haley Roberts, 23, struggled with a serious drug addiction in her youth, but got clean three years ago at Charlford House and is now a counsellor at the Burnaby facility. Having access to her friends and family helped her kick her habit, so she understands how difficult it is for many people battling addiction right now.
“As addicts we tend to isolate. For me being around my support group in early recovery was so important. Having that connection to other people, saying ‘Hey, I'm not doing so well right now, can you please support me?' But because of the COVID and the isolating and the restrictions, a lot of that isn't happening," Roberts said.
Still, she would like to share with anyone suffering alone the message she gives to the women at Charlford.
“I say to them that this is temporary, this pandemic is temporary. But in regards to addiction, this is your life. It is hard right now but we are resilient people. Many of us have come through the opioid crisis and I strongly believe that we can get through this too if we stick together,” she said. “There are huge implications around recovery right now, but still it is possible.”