Men aged 30 to 59 are making up a majority of all drug toxicity deaths across the central Island and B.C. overall. (Dreamstime)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

DRUG CRISIS

Nanaimo eclipsing record pace for drug toxicity deaths

Jul 14, 2022 | 5:24 PM

NANAIMO — If the current pace continues, more people will die from drug toxicity in Nanaimo in 2022 than any year previous.

New data from the B.C. Coroners Service showed 26 people have died in Nanaimo through the first five months of 2022. It puts the city on pace to comfortably break the 2017 record of 56 fatalities.

Throughout central Vancouver Island, which encompasses communities across the Island north of the Malahat and south of the Comox Valley, 66 people have lost their lives so far in 2022.

“We are, once again, on pace to lose a record number of our community members in 2022,” Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner, BC Coroners Service, said in a statement. “The illicit drug supply in this province continues to be volatile and inconsistent, and presents a significant risk to anyone who uses drugs.”

In B.C., 195 people lost their lives in May alone and a total of 940 people have died as a result of a toxic drug supply since the start of January.

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Familiar themes in the data continue to emerge.

A vast majority of the deaths, 73 per cent through 2022, were people aged 30 to 59. Of those fatalities, just over three quarters were men.

The Coroners Service did note an sharp increase in the presence of benzodiazepines over the last couple of years.

Around 15 per cent of samples tested positive in July 2020 compared to 52 per cent in January 2022, however the rate has since stabilized to 32 per cent in May.

The substance etizolam was found in 40 per cent of drug toxicity deaths between July 2022 and May 2022, which is a drug similar to benzodiazepine but is not responsive to naloxone, which can reverse the effects of drug poisoning with some substances.

The province’s 940 fatalities linked to the toxic drug crisis is a new record for the end of May in a calendar year, ahead of the 896 set in 2021.

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