Poisoned drugs are now the fifth-leading cause of deaths in B.C. just behind cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes, and above COVID-19, according to modelling presented earlier this month.
And the rate of deaths this year is at its greatest since data recording began with 38 people dying per 100,000 in the population. In 2020, the rate was 33.5 people per 100,000.
Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health regions continue to see the highest total deaths with 137 and 171 so far this year respectively.
But northern B.C. is bearing the highest per-capita toll at 56.7 deaths per 100,000 and
41 deaths this year.
On the five-year anniversary of the province’s first and longest public health emergency earlier this month, Malcolmson announced B.C. would formally seek permission from Ottawa to decriminalize drugs for personal use.
SHARES A safe supply of free drugs is given out during an event organized by Drug User Liberation Front in Vancouver on Wednesday.
Photo by Maggie MacPherson.
Illicit drugs are usually bought in the shadows, and then often consumed alone. But as Canada’s black market drug supply has become increasingly tainted with unstable mixes of fentanyl and benzodiazepines, both are increasingly deadly activities.
Activists gathered Wednesday in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood to show how bringing drug use into the light could help save lives.
The protest came as British Columbia entered its fifth year of a public health emergency because of rising deaths due to poisoned drugs. The group, the Drug User Liberation Front, staged a similar event last year.