How bad is the problem?
Really, really, really bad.
Moira Wyton, writing in The Tyee drives home the point:
...In the nearly six years since toxic drug deaths were declared a public health emergency, the rate of deaths has doubled to 41.2 per 100,000. More than 8,500 British Columbians have died in that time. Toxic drugs are the leading cause of unnatural deaths in B.C., more than car accidents, homicide and suicide combined...
In other words absolutely nothing is worse than this thing that is killing people at faster and faster rates for no good reason at all.
Which is why we've got to urgently move forward with concrete, on-the-ground steps to mitigate things significantly.
It would seem that a good first (and only first) urgent step would be the one that Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe is calling for:
...Lapointe has called for rapid access to safe, regulated supplies of criminalized substances, known as safe supply, to prevent deaths by separating people from the increasingly toxic drug supply.
“We have not seen a rollout of safe supply on a scale commensurate with the risk to health and safety in our province,” said Lapointe, noting that co-op models, compassion clubs and other solutions need government support to reach as many people as possible.
“There is intent, there is good will, there are plans. To my mind, they’re not urgent enough.”...
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If you want a good person to follow on this, I strongly suggest Garth Mullins.
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1 comment:
If you want to read the whole document ..... the source, then ask what happened in 2019, like what prevention steps helped then, or has it just been the roll of the dice?
Search Criteria:
British Columbia 41.2 per 100,000 Coroners Service confirmed 201 people died of poisoned drugs in October
Government document source not blocked by a FOI paywall:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/illicit-drug.pdf
Page 3 of 26:
Figure 1:
Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths and Death Rate per 100,000 Population.
Year Deaths, Rate
2015, 529 11.1
2016, 993 20.4
2017, 1493 30.3
2018, 1558 31.1
2019, 983 19.3
2020, 1765 34.3
2021, 1782 41.2
Inclusion Criteria: The illicit drug toxicity category includes the following:
• Street drugs (Controlled and illegal drugs: heroin, cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine,
illicit fentanyl etc.).
• Medications not prescribed to the decedent but obtained/purchased on the street, from
unknown means or where origin of drug not known.
• Combinations of the above with prescribed medications
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