‘Unregulated’ toxic drugs kill 206 British Columbians in April

The BC Coroners Service says 206 people in British Columbia died of “unregulated drugs” in April, while also hitting another grim milestone — more than 12,000 people have died since the public-health emergency was declared in 2016.

The latest figures come as the service says 814 people have died in the first four months of this year.

“As has been the case throughout the crisis, the illicit drug supply remains highly volatile, challenging people’s best efforts to use safely and challenging life-saving responses,” the coroners service said in a statement Thursday.

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The service says in about 80 per cent of the deaths recorded, fentanyl is present, almost always in combination with other substances. However, the service confirms reports of an increase in benzodiazepines also in the drug supply, which it says is the “result of enhancements to benzodiazepine testing by the Provincial Toxicology Centre.”

“Illicit fentanyl continues to be the main and most lethal driver of B.C.’s drug-toxicity public-health emergency, having been detected in 86 per cent of deaths in 2022 and 79 per cent of deaths in 2023,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “Cocaine, methamphetamines and/or benzodiazapines are also often present.”

“This drug poisoning crisis is the direct result of an unregulated drug market. Members of our communities are dying because non-prescribed, non-pharmaceutical fentanyl is poisoning them on an unprecedented scale.”

April was the 31st consecutive month where more than 150 people died to toxic unregulated drugs, the service says, and the 13 month where more than 200 people were killed.

The services notes that about 6.9 people died each day in April. The Vancouver Coastal, Island, and North health authorities recorded the highest rates of death in the first quarter of 2023.

B.C.’s representative for children and youth, Jennifer Charlesworth, says there is no evident to suggest that diverted safer supply has been a factor in the toxic-drug injuries or deaths that have been reported to her office.

“Based on the reports of critical injuries and deaths that my office reviews every month, we have not seen any indication that youth are using from diverted supply,” Charlesworth said. “The injuries and deaths reported to us are as a result of youth accessing the illicit supply and they are typically using an array of substances. Through our advocacy work and in-depth reviews, young people are advising us that they are accessing an illicit supply in order to cope with the trauma that they are dealing with in their lives.”

Since the health emergency was declared in April 2016, the coroners service says 12,206 people have been killed by unregulated toxic drugs.

So far this year, 70 per cent of people who have died were between the ages of 30 and 59, while 77 per cent of those people were men.

“It’s critical that we rely on science, reliable data and legitimate reporting as we respond to an emergency that has taken the lives of so many of our family members, friends and neighbours,” Lapointe said.

“We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the root of this crisis was the arrival of illicit fentanyl in B.C. in 2013, and that it has been driven by illicit fentanyl ever since. Safer-supply prescribing and the decriminalization of small amounts of some drugs for personal use are recent health-centred approaches to a complex health challenge.

“Anonymous allegations and second-hand anecdotes suggesting that these new initiatives are somehow responsible for the crisis our province has been experiencing since early 2016 are not only harmful, they are simply wrong.”

Lapointe’s statement comes as a Surrey MLA last week said doctors at St. Paul’s Hospital have stopped prescribing a specific addiction medicine, in part, because it’s getting sold on the street.

South Surrey MLA Elenore Sturko says a group of doctors have stopped prescribing hydromorphone.

“They’re taking their prescription and they’re selling or trading it for toxic drugs,” Sturko said.

However, hospital leadership said that claim was incorrect.

Garth Mullins, with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the Host of the Crackdown Podcast, says there is no research saying diversion of prescribed drugs to the street is a new problem.

“If someone was diverting it, if someone was to get a pill they weren’t prescribed for — that would actually be safer than if they were scoring just fentanyl off the street here. That would provide safety,” Mullins said.

“The honourable member is just joining a pile-on — with Pierre Polievre, with Danielle Smith, people in Alberta, with Conservatives on the right, all over North America — who are now beating-up on harm reduction, beating-up on safe supply.”

Meanwhile, the BC Coroners Service has revised an earlier assertion that two people have died at overdose prevention sites in the province. The service says that “after further investigation, one death has now been excluded.”