‘Why would the numbers be lower?’: Advocate says B.C. toxic drug deaths will continue without gov’t action

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) — Leslie McBain is heartbroken but not surprised that 176 people in B.C. died from toxic, illicit drugs in April, saying deaths will continue to set devastating records until the province changes its response.

On Tuesday, the BC Coroners Service announced one of the highest monthly totals of lives lost since B.C. declared a public health emergency in 2016. April of 2020 was the fourteenth straight month in which more than 100 people in the province died.

“My reaction is the same as every month for five years. I’m not surprised. I’m always heartbroken by the numbers. Every time, every month they come out, I can just feel it in my bones the grief that rolls out from, from all these deaths,” says McBain, the co-founder of Moms Stop the Harm and an advisor to the British Columbia Center on Substance Abuse.

“I’m not surprised by these numbers. The government of British Columbia has not changed anything. So why would the numbers be lower? Why would they be any different? It’s frustrating, it’s heartbreaking.”

RELATED: B.C.’s overdose crisis claims 176 lives in April

McBain says advocates have been consistently pushing for three things: a safe supply, wide-ranging pathways to accessible treatment, and decriminalization of drug possession.

“It’s a problem that has several solutions but we don’t seem to be able to get the government to move towards them in any kind of expedient manner,” she says.

“As a culture, in Canada it’s just sort of astounding that we can’t get more done around these deaths when we consider these citizens, these are our people.”

Fentanyl continues to be found in much of the drug supply, with the province noting it was detected in 86 per cent of deadly drugs.

“If the government was able to implement a regulated, safer supply of drugs for people who have suffered abuse disorder, deaths would drop dramatically. Right now people with substance use disorder or addiction have no recourse but to go to the illicit black market. And those drugs are dangerous. They’re often fatal,” McBain says.

When it comes to accessing treatment McBain points out the weeks-long waits for detox, the high cost of private facilities, the lack of publicly-funded spces, and the lack of access to primary care as some of the barriers. Further, people end up “running around in circles” trying to figure out what help is available and hoe to access it.

“We have systems that are not easily navigated, but also people just don’t know where to go.”

Decriminalization of possession not only prevents people from being arrested, charged and jailed — it reduces the stigma of drug use, McBain has said.

“If we consider people not criminals and we destigmatize that person, they are not going to be so afraid to use their drugs in a safe way, in a safe situation,” she says.

“It’s a big step towards our goals as Moms Stop the Harm — we want people to stay alive, we don’t want people to die.”

RELATED: Dr. Henry told B.C. how to decriminalize drugs without Trudeau. It hasn’t. 

Ultimately, McBain says the number of deaths reported each month doesn’t come close to capturing the reality of how devastating the crisis of toxic drug deaths is in B.C., and throughout Canada.

“You hear this number of 176 people but then you can multiply that by 10 or by 20 to realize the number of people now in grief, and suffering great loss,” she says.

“The numbers are always terrible but what’s even more terrible is what is behind the numbers, what the effect is.”