Advocate worries crisis is being forgotten as B.C. toxic drug deaths tick up in June

The B.C. Coroners Service said it recorded 138 suspected toxic drug deaths across the province in June — representing an increase from the previous month, but a decrease from the same month last year.

According to the coroners service, the numbers are an increase from April and May, when 120 and 110 deaths were recorded respectively.

There were 776 deaths recorded in the first half of the year, down 40 per cent from the same period last year.

Deaths have been on a downward trend after a peak was recorded in 2023.

Garth Mullins, a member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and host of the Crackdown podcast, said he worries that officials have forgotten about those who use drugs as the number of recorded deaths trends downward.

“We’re still dying, and they’re just rolling back and cutting off programs,” he said.

“In fact, they just announced they were going to permanently shut [an] overdose prevention site that’s scheduled for downtown Vancouver.”

Mullins said that in addition to overdose prevention sites being shut down, prescribed alternatives to street drugs were being made more difficult to access in B.C.

He worries that drug use will be a political football in the upcoming municipal elections.

“Drugs have become a talking point in some of these elections, but not our deaths from them, but these sort of fear-based talking points — trying to scare community members into voting for more police and locking people up, rather than giving people help,” he said.

Researchers have told CBC News that a number of factors could be behind the decline in recorded toxic drug deaths — including more availability of overdose prevention medication, a decline in fentanyl concentration and an increase in people smoking drugs.

Mullins said a more grim possibility is that too many drug users are already dead and that there is now a smaller population at risk.

“That’s why I feel sometimes like the government is just waiting for the problem to solve itself. They’re just waiting for us to die,” he said.

“If they don’t do anything, eventually we’ll just go away.”

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Mullins said that, despite the numbers, he was still reversing overdoses and going to funerals and memorials regularly.

“To me, the crisis isn’t slowing down. It’s just continuing,” he said.

B.C. Health Minister Ravi Kahlon said in a statement that while the number of toxic drug deaths was “significantly lower than previous years,” too many people were using drugs and dying alone.

“This fight is far from over. We will keep strengthening the services that are saving lives, and doing the work needed to turn the tide on this crisis,” he said.