Nearly 600 Drug Deaths in BC During First Three Months of 2023, Says Coroner

A man sits in an alleyway in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Canada, on Feb. 6, 2019. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

In the first three months of 2023, almost 600 people have died in British Columbia, an average of 6.4 per day, due to drug overdoses, according to the province’s coroner.

In a news release on April 18, the BC Coroners Service said the province is losing lives in “record numbers,” attributing this to a “toxic, unregulated drug supply.”

Between January and March, 595 people died, the second-highest total in the first three months of a calendar year, beaten only by 2022, which recorded 599 overdose deaths in the first three months. The coroner said the total number of deaths equals a provincewide death rate of 44.1 per 100,00 population.

The year 2022 was the deadliest on record in the province for overdoses, with a total of 2,314 lives lost, causing more deaths than combining all of the province’s murders, suicides, motor vehicle accidents, drownings, and deaths caused by fires.

Since the province declared a public health emergency due to drugs in April 2016, 11,807 people have died from a drug overdose. Chief Coroner Lisa LaPointe said it was “a crisis of incomprehensible scale.”

The coroner suggested that there is “no evidence” that “prescribed safe supply is contributing to illicit drug deaths.”

Decriminalization

In March, B.C. set a record for the most overdose calls in one day, the highest 30-day average of overdose calls, and the most consecutive days where paramedics responded to 100 or more drug poisoning calls each day.

The B.C. government officially decriminalized possession of hard drugs on Jan. 31, under a temporary authorization by Health Canada, as a three-year experiment. This means that adults, referring to individuals over 18, found in possession of less than 2.5 grams of any combination of cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, heroin, fentanyl, and/or morphine for personal use would not be arrested or charged and would not have their drugs seized.

Carolyn Bennett, federal minister of mental health and addictions, said at a news conference in Vancouver on Jan. 30 that the province’s “harm reduction” plan will “reduce the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

The federal minister suggested B.C.’s drug policy was saving lives.

“Supervised consumption sites, which prioritize the dignity and safety of people who use drugs, have saved lives and guided many Canadians towards treatment. We know that access to treatment remains a gap,” said Bennett.

So far this year, more than 70 percent of those dying from a drug overdose were aged 30 to 59, and 77 percent were male.

Vancouver, Surrey, and Victoria continue to report the highest number of deaths from illegal drugs, but are also the highest population centres in the province.

“Two deaths have occurred at an overdose prevention site: one in 2022 and one in 2023,” according to the coroner.

Lapointe said recommendations from experts on various committees and panels support the province providing “a safe, regulated supply of substances for those at risk of serious harm or death,” and provincial standards for treatment and recovery services.

“This is also not a crisis confined to certain neighbourhoods or certain towns. All areas of our province are immensely affected by this crisis, and collaboration, innovation and the rejection of old stereotypes and failed solutions are necessary to prevent future deaths,” she said.

Treatment

In February, The Epoch Times asked the B.C. Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions what evidence the province used to conclude destigmatization would save lives and prevent drug deaths.

“Drug use is a public health matter—not a criminal justice one. Criminalization drives people to hide their drug use and often use alone. Given the increasingly toxic drug supply—using alone can be fatal,” the ministry replied in a statement.

B.C.’s approach to decriminalization contrasts sharply with Alberta’s focus on addictions recovery and treatment programs, which include the construction of a 75-bed long-term residential treatment facility in Red Deer, announced on Jan. 16, plus five more recovery communities in various stages of planning throughout the province.

“While Alberta’s government does not believe in criminalizing a health-care issue, you cannot simply take away penalties for unlawful behaviour and expect things to get better,” Colin Aitchison, spokesperson for Alberta’s Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction, previously told The Epoch Times.

He said Alberta is “building a recovery-oriented system of addiction and mental health care” and will create more than 9,000 new publicly funded addiction treatment spaces and eliminate user fees for residential addiction treatment.

Filmmaker Aaron Gunn, who produced the 2022 documentary “Vancouver is Dying,” spent months interviewing city residents, business owners, law enforcement, mental health and addiction experts, victims of violent crime, and recovered addicts.

Gunn told The Epoch Times that since B.C. began its harm reduction strategy in 2001, both crime and overdose deaths in the province have skyrocketed. “It’s idiotic and incredibly misguided to destigmatize drug use, which lowers the barriers to doing it, so people do more of it,” Gunn said. “These drugs like crystal meth and fentanyl are some of the most damaging substances on the planet. There’s no such thing as a ‘safe’ amount of fentanyl or crystal meth.”

The coroner said that in 2023, the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths were in Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health Authorities, making up 59 percent of all such deaths so far.

The highest rates of death in 2023 so far were in Northern Health (60 deaths per 100,000 individuals) and Vancouver Coastal Health (59 per 100,000).