Multiple factors behind decline in toxic drug deaths: provincial health officer
B. C. ’s provincial health officer says multiple factors, including widespread availability of naloxone, are contributing to a sustained decline in toxic drug deaths in the province, which is consistent with trends across Canada.
Many factors behind declinePhoto: . B. C. provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry in a file photo from May. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad HipolitoB. C. ’s provincial health officer says multiple factors, including widespread availability of naloxone, are contributing to a sustained decline in toxic drug deaths in the province, which is consistent with trends across Canada. The B. C. Coroners Service recorded 119 deaths in April — according topreliminary data— down 32 per cent from April of last year. It’s the lowest April total since 2019, when 81 illicit drug poisonings were recorded. The province also saw the lowest start-of-the-year four-month total since 2020. There were 522 drug-related deaths in the first four months of this year, down about 15 per cent from last year and more than 41 per cent lower than in the first quarter of 2023, the year B. C. deaths peaked. Aside from availability of naloxone, Dr. Bonnie Henry attributed the drop to factors including fewer younger people initiating drug use, increased public awareness of overdose signs and response measures, and expanded access to health and social supports, including initiatives that address underlying challenges such as homelessness. “While this is encouraging, the number of lives lost and families affected remains tragically high,” she said in a statement to theTimes Colonist. The coroners service had said overdose death rates have been tracking downward, especially for people ages 19 to 59, but chief coroner Dr. Jatinder (Taj) Baidwan has not provided an explanation for the decline in drug deaths to four a day from a peak of seven. More than 1,800 people died in B. C. last year from illicit drug overdoses, down 21 per cent from the year before and almost 30 per cent from the peak in 2023. B. C. MLA Elenore Sturko noted that while there were a record number of drug deaths in 2023, when the province’s experiment with decriminalization was introduced, 2024 — when public drug use became illegal again — “was the beginning of the decline of overdose deaths. ”In January of this year, the province chose to let expire its exemption to the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act that allowed adults to possess up to 2. 5 grams of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine and MDMA as part of a three-year experiment to address the toxic-drug overdose crisis. New rules also required those who dispense so-called safer supply drugs to watch the pharmaceutical drugs being consumed so they aren’t taken from the premises and sold or otherwise diverted. Sturko, who sits as an independent after being kicked out of the John Rustad-era B. C. Conservatives, said people like herself who fought to end the decriminalization experiment and switch to “witnessed” safer supply were originally accused of increasing stigma and spreading misinformation. But she argues the street disorder resulting from decriminalization was probably most responsible for increasing stigma and judgment of people who use drugs. Sturko maintains that reversing decriminalization and removing unwitnessed safe supply is having a positive impact beyond declining drug deaths, including allowing parents and teachers to educate youth about the harms of drug use and hopefully prevent addiction. At the height of decriminalization, she said, it was challenging for parents to tell kids not to use drugs “when the government was legalizing them, or explaining to youth there’s such thing as a ‘safe supply. ’ ”April this year marked a decade since the overdose crisis in B. C. was declared a public health emergency. More than 18,000 people have since died.