Today marks one year since British Columbia’s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency in the wake of an alarming increase in fatal opioid-related drug overdoses. Despite numerous preventative measures, however, new statistics reveal that overdose deaths are actually continuing to rise in the province.
“Tragically, in that 12-month period we have seen an additional 919 deaths,” B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said in a written statement yesterday.
According to B.C.’s Coroners Service, there were a staggering 922 illicit drug overdose deaths in the province in 2016, up from 513 in 2015 and 366 in 2014. There were also a distressing 219 such overdose deaths in the first two months of 2017 -- a 65% increase from the same period last year. Males are disproportionately represented in these deaths, statistics reveal. The most at-risk age group are those 30 to 39.
Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid that has received much attention since the overdose epidemic began, was detected in 60 per cent of all illicit drug overdose deaths in 2016, a March 2017 report by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control states. According to that same report, Fentanyl was detected in only five per cent of illicit drug deaths in 2012.
“The introduction of highly potent synthetic opioids has been the game-changer in B.C.,” Kendall said, “and I don’t think we are going to be able to keep these out.”
In the wake of the declaration of a public health emergency last year, B.C. opened nearly two dozen overdose prevention sites across the province while acquiring some 30,000 naloxone kits, which can reverse opioid overdoses.
Those efforts, Kendall said, have not been in vain.
“While the continued toll is discouraging, we must also acknowledge that because of these actions, hundreds of people are alive and hundreds more are now in treatment and recovery who would not be were it not for these interventions.”
In his wide-ranging online statement, Kendall said that the province can better continue to tackle the issue by doing everything from tweaking its addictions treatment system to changing the structure of existing drug laws.
“I think that unfortunately, we still have a long road ahead,” Kendall said, “but I believe that we have the means, the motivation and the compassion to turn this situation around.”
(B.C. Coroners Service)
