Counting the cost of British Columbia’s toxic drug crisis
By The Canadian Press, The Canadian Press on September 28, 2024.
A woman prepares to smoke a cigarette in an alley after using illicit drugs at an outdoor supervised consumption site in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, on Thursday, May 27, 2021. The toxic drug crisis is one of the most contentious and widely debated issues ahead of British Columbia's provincial election on Oct. 19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl DyckThe toxic drug crisis is one of the most contentious and widely debated issues ahead of British Columbia’s provincial election on Oct. 19.
Here’s a look at the provincial statistics on toxic drug deaths to July 31, according to the BC Coroners Service.
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Deaths since declaration of public health emergency in April 2016: 15,140
2024 deaths: 1,365
2024 deaths involving detection of fentanyl: 83 per cent
2024 deaths with smoking as mode of drug consumption: 68 per cent
2024 victims who were men: 73 per cent
Deaths per day in 2024: 6.4
July 2024 deaths: 192, a 15 per cent decrease from July 2023.
Sept. 24, 2024: “One of the huge challenges with the prescribed safe-supply program is that there just aren’t enough physicians to prescribe, so as I said, there are estimates, reliable estimates, that there are about 225,000 people in our province using substances, unregulated substances. Fewer than 2 per cent of those people have access to a regulated supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, B.C.’s former chief coroner.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2024.
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So, the problem in and of itself is not safe supply. The problem is that there are not enough doctors to prescribe the safe supply. Have they lost their collective minds.?????
There must be something in the water the health professionals and leadership are drinking.
All drugs are toxic, yet BC only states the fatal overdoses from the “toxic” drugs. They believe their safe supply drugs are not toxic and do not add them to their reported stats. Other reports call them illegal toxic drugs.
They are on the road to over 2700 fatal overdoses for 2024 if the trend continues, but I have to ask, how many died from the safe supply drugs?
“I lost my daughter two years ago to this opioid crisis. I fought for the last two years to save her life, and I failed,” said Greg Sword, struggling to contain his tears. He had flown from Metro Vancouver to Ottawa, to tell parliamentarians he believes diverted “safer supply” opioids led to the death of his only daughter, Kamilah, two years ago. Sword testified safer supply opioids had ravaged her friend group and he wanted justice for them all.
Yet at the House of Commons Health Committee, where Sword’s testimony was given , the Liberal-NDP MPs in attendance didn’t seem too interested in his story. They asked no questions of him, and, worse yet, seemingly used parliamentary maneuvers to reduce his speaking time.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/adam-zivo-liberals-and-ndp-have-no-time-for-your-daughters-tragic-opioid-story
—They asked no questions of him, and, worse yet, seemingly used parliamentary maneuvers to reduce his speaking time.—
It seems this is a new trick used across the country to cut off concerned citizens as we just witnessed in this weeks police commission’s meeting which had a large crowd of concerned business owners and the chief of police had the commission end the comments after 11 people.
Very sad that no one cares about all the people impacted and all the deaths.