Critics of BC’s harm reduction policies complain residents are more likely to be arrested for smoking cigarettes in public than crack on the SkyTrain..Apparently they’re more likely to die from it too.. Drug deaths in BCBC deaths in 2022 by age and cause. .According to the latest numbers from the province’s Ministry of Health and Addictions for September, 65% of 1,600 overdose deaths thus far in 2023 came from victims who smoke their drugs compared to 15% from injection, 14% from snorting and 5% from oral consumption. .The province’s chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, said the trend to smoking drugs is much more pronounced now than when the the province’s — and North America’s — first public consumption site was established in 2003 in Vancouver’s notorious Lower East Side.."Clearly, smoking drugs is much more popular now than injecting drugs. If we want to keep people safe, if we want to reduce the death toll from the opioid crisis, then we need to be meeting people where they are and certainly a need to adapt policies, whatever they may be," she said..This, even though only 19 of the province’s 47 ‘safe’ consumption sites offer places to smoke drugs rather than inject them, due partly to local ordinances that ban smoking in public, but also due to health and safety concerns for workers due to inadequate ventilation equipment..In BC, local governments are continuing to pass zoning bylaws that restrict safe consumption sites despite a 2016 emergency health order. Of the sites that allow smoking, most are outdoors in tents after taking in considerations for access in winter conditions.."That’s why our government has rapidly scaled up overdose prevention and harm reduction measures since 2017. This includes significantly increasing the number of overdose prevention services from one site in 2016 to 47 sites as of July 2023, including 19 sites offering inhalation services," addictions minister Jennifer Whiteside said in a statement..For the first time ever, drugs are now the leading cause of death among British Columbians aged 10 to 59 and 2023 is shaping up to be another record year. In August, 198 people a day die from drug overdose..According to the BC coroner’s drug dashboard, illicit fentanyl was involved in 87% of all deaths..In March, for the first time ever, a victim died from an overdose at a registered overdose prevention site.
