Exasperation from advocates as B.C. toxic drug death toll surpasses 10,000 in six years

Advocates are expressing their frustration at government inaction, as the BC Coroners Service reveals more than 10,000 people have died since the province declared a health emergency over the toxic drug supply.

It comes as the push for a safe supply of drugs continues from community members and health care providers.

For Guy Felicella, a peer clinical advisor at Vancouver Coastal Health, the slow rollout of safe alternatives to street drugs is agonizing.

“The illicit drug market is not going to get better,” Felicella said. “Organized crime isn’t suddenly going to put out a safer supply. We have to. And until we do, I’m going to stay angry and motivated, because I know inaction is killing our friends, our family members, people in our community, people who are cherished and loved.”

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Nearly 1,100 people lost their lives in the first half of this year. According to the coroners service, in the first six months of 2022, an average of six people died each day due to toxic drugs.

“I am angry too,” Leslie McBain with Moms Stop the Harm said. “Nothing substantive has changed in seven years. Nothing the government has done has changed this catastrophic failure of drug policies that continue to kill the people who must access the drugs they need on the black market.”

At a news conference in Victoria on Tuesday, McBain had a direct message for the provincial government.

“Where is the pivot point?” McBain asked. “Is it 11,000? 12,000? 20,000 deaths? We have lost a generation of innocent people to a preventable death in this province because the government is still stuck in prohibition, of failed 100-year-old policy.

“I ask our Premier John Horgan, our Minister of Health Adrian Dix, and our Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson to actually implement the recommendations of the coroner’s death review panel, the group of highly qualified experts who have informed the government in no uncertain terms how to stop this epidemic of death — ensuring a safer supply of drugs to those at risk of dying from the toxic supply.”

Last month, Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe told CityNews she was frustrated.

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“If there were a multi-vehicle fatality and six people died on a highway, that would get people’s attention,” she said on July 18. “But six people die every single day in our province as a result of toxic drugs and I worry that we’re becoming accustomed to it and we’re finding it’s just the cost of doing business and it shouldn’t be. We are losing tremendously valuable people, who are loved and who contribute to their communities and just happen to use drugs and the toxic supply is just so risky.”

The coroners service says 73 per cent of those who died in 2022 were aged 30 to 59, and 78 per cent were men. The vast majority (84 per cent) of deaths happened indoors, including 56 per cent that occurred in private homes.

“There is no average person dying as a result of drug use. There is no stereotype,” Lapointe said last month. “There are people who are really disadvantaged and vulnerable on the Downtown Eastside who die, but there are people in suburban neighbourhoods who die just as often. There are people in rural communities, small communities, people from all walks of life — we see those people as coroners. Of course, because of the stigma, families don’t want to share that their loved one died as a result of drug use. What we really need people to understand is this can happen to anybody and we’re all vulnerable.”

No deaths have been reported at supervised consumption or drug overdose prevention sites.

With files from Denise Wong and Sonia Aslam