BC’s Chief Coroner is searching for solutions to the province’s overdose death toll.
The latest report from the province shows 102 people died from illicit drug overdoses last month (almost doubling the total of February 2016), with an average of over 3 per day.
Lisa Lapointe says the overdose prevention sites and availability of Naloxone kits are helpful antidotes in the short term, but a long-term solutions goes much deeper.
“…these are primarily all deaths due to cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine…and we know from the last few months, we don’t have recent data, for the last month, but at least 60% of deaths are related to fentanyl”, she says.
Lapointe says drug overdoses are a medical condition, and changing our approach to provide assistance is key to greatly lowering the death rate.
