B.C.'s illicit drug deaths numbers down in January

After a record number of fatalities in November and December, British Columbia saw a decrease in drug-related deaths in January.

Data from the BC Coroners Service shows that 116 people died as a result of illicit drug use during January, down from 142 in December.

Unfortunately, the January totals still rank it as the third worst month for illicit drug-related deaths in provincial history.

“While the numbers show a slight decline from December to January, they are still far too high,” said Health Minister, Terry Lake.

Nearly 60% of the January deaths involved people between the age of 30 and 49 years old, continuing that trend from 2016.

Four out of five of the deaths were males.

Over 90% of the reported deaths occurred indoors, but there wasn’t a single death reported from supervised consumption sites or overdose prevention sites.

“The continuing high number of deaths shows that the risks remain extreme,” said chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe.

Lapointe also noted that the early indications show that many of those who died were drug-dependant and in many cases did not succeed in a variety of treatment programs.

“For these people, I think we would be wise to seriously consider the carefully considered suggestion made by provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall,” explained Lapointe. “The possibility of providing clean, medical-grade heroin to that small subset of users for whom nothing else has worked.”

In the meantime, Lapointe stressed that anyone using illicit drugs should do so only where medical help is available or at the very least around someone who is sober and has access to naloxone.

On Friday morning, Canada's Health Minister, Jane Philpott, announced that the Federal government would be providing $65 million to fight the opioid crisis nationwide and with $10 million of that going immediately to B.C.