The toxic drug crisis continues to tighten its grip over Nanaimo with the city poised to smash records set in 2022, by the summer. (Pikist)

By Alex Rawnsley

record numbers

Nanaimo residents dying at over twice the provincial rate from drug toxicity

May 18, 2023 | 9:23 AM

NANAIMO — New drug toxicity data provides a grim picture of the crisis.

The B.C. Coroners Service reports 45 people in Nanaimo lost their lives to drug toxicity through the first four months of the year, part of 814 deaths province-wide.

Nanaimo’s pace of fatalities through the first four months of the year has the city poised to eclipse the record number of deaths in the first six months of a year, which was established in the first half of last year with 75 toxic drug deaths.

The region’s toxic death rate, measured in fatalities per 100,000 people, is at 105.8 and over double the provincial rate of 45.2.

“Illicit fentanyl continues to be the main and most lethal driver of B.C.’s drug-toxicity public-health emergency, having been detected in 86 per cent of deaths in 2022 and 79 per cent of deaths in 2023,” Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner, said in a statement.

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Cocaine, methamphetamines, or benzodiazepines are also often present in testing.

A total of 206 people died in April alone province-wide, representing a 17 per cent increase from April 2022 and a four per cent jump from March.

Victoria matched Nanaimo for the number of unregulated drug deaths, however, the provincial capital’s fatality rate per capita was about half of Nanaimo’s.

Oceanside recorded four drug-toxicity fatalities between January and April 2023.

Only Vancouver Central-North (133), Vancouver City Centre (46) and Surrey (64) have recorded more fatalities than Nanaimo this year.

Of deaths province-wide, 77 per cent were in men, 70 per cent of whom were aged 30 to 59.

April 2023 was also the 31st consecutive month of at least 150 deaths in B.C. related to drug toxicity, while over 12,000 people in the province have died since the public health emergency was declared in 2016.

Lapointe said the arrival of fentanyl to B.C. in 2013 triggered the crisis and continues to fuel its growth.

She added safe supply and decriminalization initiatives advocated for and implemented in the years since are helping.

‘Safer-supply prescribing and the decriminalization of small amounts of some drugs for personal use are recent health-centred approaches to a complex health challenge. Anonymous allegations and second-hand anecdotes suggesting that these new initiatives are somehow responsible for the crisis our province has been experiencing since early 2016 are not only harmful, they are simply wrong.”

The province has recorded one death at a monitored overdose prevention site in B.C. this year.

All numbers from the B.C. Coroner Service are considered preliminary and may be adjusted slightly upon further investigation.

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