Illicit drug deaths down in Prince George despite nearly doubling over summer

The BC Coroners Service has published updated reports on illicit drug toxicity deaths and fentanyl-detected drug deaths.

In a two month span, illicit drug deaths in Prince George nearly doubled its year’s total.

From January to the end of June, Prince George had recorded 11 deaths. It marked a 35 per cent drop from the same total from the year before. However, while still down, Prince George experienced nine deaths from the beginning of July to the end of August.

“Our data is preliminary and subject to change, so we did see an increase in the number of deaths reported to us as toxicology test results were received,” Manager of Strategic Communications with the BC Coroners Service, Andy Watson told MyPGNow. “As investigations have concluded, and certainly with the information for July and August coming in, that number has gone up to 20 and we’ll continue to monitor that but still, we’re encouraged to see that number is down in terms of the average deaths per month, and that trend continues across the health authority and across the province.”

In 2018, Prince George experienced 49 illicit drug deaths.

With the updated reports, there were 79 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in the province, a 37 per cent decrease from the number of deaths in August of 2018 (125), and a 13 per cent increase from the number of deaths occurring in July 2019 (70).

Across the province, there were approximately 2.5 illicit drug deaths per day during the month of August.

For the first eight months of 2019, there were 690 illicit drug toxicity deaths, a decrease of 33 per cent over the same eight-month period in 2018 when 1,037 were reported.

This year, 71 per cent of those dying were aged 30 to 59 years. Individuals aged 19 to 59 years accounted for 89 per cent of all illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2019. Males have accounted for 77 per cent of all suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2019.

In both 2018 and 2019, Fentanyl has been detected in more than 85 per cent of illicit drug toxicity deaths.

The service also found that no deaths have been reported at supervised consumption sites or drug overdose prevention sites.

“What we know from the data is that people who are dying are dying indoors. Often those people who are dying indoors are often doing it alone. So what happens when someone comes across a toxic batch of a substance, they don’t have someone to call 911 or administer naloxone. We continue to advocate for them to use at supervised consumption sites.”

Watson adds that were it not for the efforts in operating supervised consumption sites and drug overdose prevention sites, along with many other resources, the death total would be two to three-times higher.