Looking back on nearly a decade of the toxic drug crisis in BC

Nine years have passed since Dr. Perry Kendall, BC Health Officer at the time, announced that the toxic drug crisis had become a public health emergency. Since then, more than 16K people in BC have died from poisonous drugs—2,784 of these deaths were on the Island—and the yearly toll is more than double what was recorded in 2016.

While death rates have risen significantly since the emergency began, last year the province recorded a 13% decrease in drug deaths, and that trend appears to be continuing in 2025. Still, it appears an end to the crisis is a long way off.

Services still aren’t adequate, say several addiction advocates

Awareness of the crisis and how to navigate it has improved. In 2023, Capital Daily reported that more people than ever were getting their drugs tested at Substance UVic’s facility on Cook. Samples ranged in fentanyl concentrations from 8% to 80%, highlighting the unpredictability of the substance.

Increased access to safer supply has been recommended by several health experts, including current Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry; BC has continued to reject this recommendation.

Front-line workers say they see first-hand how the system continues to fail the street community and those who use drugs. One Victoria harm-reduction worker says recovery services are also sorely lacking.

Policy changes have swung like a pendulum, hurting long-term improvements, experts say

In response to the crisis, BC decriminalized carrying a small amount of illicit substances in January 2023 as part of a three-year pilot to address the toxic drug crisis as a health issue, not a criminal one.

But later that year, changes were made to limit where drugs could be consumed, with many public outdoor spaces outlawed. The vast majority of toxic drug deaths occur indoors, and harm-reduction experts say these policies push people further into the shadows.

Some advocate for an end to decriminalization, arguing the first year didn’t offer a significant drop in deaths. A recent study from JAMA Health made headlines for concluding that the number of deaths rose under decriminalization and the safer supply prescription program. But former BC chief coroner, Lisa Lapointe, was quick to question the study’s conclusions. The review looked at data from 2016 to the end of 2023; this omits the fact that drug deaths decreased significantly in 2024.

Lapointe wrote an op-ed for the Times Colonist this week, calling for research on the risks and benefits of criminalization—which she argues is an approach based on stigma rather than fact—and a closer look at the drug supply.

“Despite decades of evidence suggesting otherwise, there is an implicit assumption that prohibition and criminalization have been useful and effective tools in reducing drug use and associated harms,” Lapointe wrote. “Canada’s drug toxicity crisis began and continues to flourish under a criminalization/drug prohibition model.”

Lapointe cites Health Canada data that show 55% of those who use drugs live with chronic pain and 20% of those with a substance use disorder also have a co-occurring mental-health disorder.

“Criminalizing these vulnerable members of our communities is cruel and harmful,” Lapointe writes. “Continuing to do more of what has never worked is irrational and irresponsible.”

Converging crises

Other epidemics have been braided into the toxic drug crisis, including homelessness, brain injuries, and mental health issues. COVID-19 also had devastating effects on the crisis: in 2019, there was a significant downward trend in the number of toxic drug deaths—dropping to 984 in 2019 from 1549 in 2018—tied to the rapid implementation of harm-reduction services that year. But once the pandemic hit, these deaths skyrocketed in BC, exceeding 2K deaths a year for the first time.

These crises have made it difficult to develop a one-size-fits-all approach, with multiple researchers and frontline workers telling Capital Daily reporters over the years that care and treatment for those who use drugs must be highly specialized.

Toxic drug death at UVic prompts changes in post-secondary education across the country

The January 2024 death on UVic campus of Sidney McIntrye-Starko, 18—whose first experience with illicit drugs resulted in cardiac arrest after consuming cocaine laced with a fatal dose of fentanyl—prompted a sea of change in universities. An investigation released earlier this month found her death was preventable, pointing to failures from multiple levels of university staff.

Since McIntrye-Starko’s death, Education Minister Lisa Beare has announced legislation that all schools must implement a standard set of guidelines to address drugs on campuses—including increased access to naloxone and better first-aid training among care staff—to prevent such deaths. Similar policies were rolled out at post-secondary schools throughout Ontario, with their education minister citing the Victoria teen’s death as the reason for the update.

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Correction: A previous version of this story identified Dr. Bonnie Henry as the provincial health officer in 2016. Dr. Perry Kendall was BC's health officer at this time, while Henry acted as deputy health officer.