Alberni ranks second for drug deaths in BC

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Port Alberni’s Community Action Team came before the regional district board with some grim statistics.

With more than 20 overdose deaths in the past year, Alberni has experienced an overdose death rate of 102.8 deaths per hundred thousand people which is second only to the notorious Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, also known as Canada’s poorest postal code.

Community Action Team co-chair Ron Merk says multiple groups and agencies are working together to reduce toxic drug deaths.

“It’s a horrible position to be in,” he said. “It just reflects a whole pile of social and economic challenges we have in the community. We need to be thinking out of the box and that was the reason behind the blueprint document. We tried to come up with anything and everything we could that could make a difference.”

The Port Alberni agency recently released a blueprint of transformative strategies to the toxic drug catastrophe for the Alberni Valley which includes more than 300 recommendations.

See full report at: ptalbcat.blogspot.com