File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Jill Sperling

OVERDOSE CRISIS

Increase in overdose numbers spurs calls for decriminalization

Aug 25, 2020 | 4:41 PM

KAMLOOPS — Last month, B.C. lost another 175 lives to suspected illicit drug overdoses. The numbers have spiked in recent months, corresponding with a more toxic drug supply.

“The number of people dying in B.C. due to an unsafe drug supply continues to surpass deaths due to homicides, motor vehicle incidents, suicides and COVID-19 combined,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner with the BC Coroners Service.

July was the third consecutive month with a report of more than 170 illicit drug overdose deaths and saw a 136 per cent increase over July of last year.

“We thought we were making progress up until the beginning of this year and it’s just gone the opposite way,” said former B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake.

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Lake was health minister when the opioid crisis was declared a provincial health emergency in April 2016.

“I really am shocked that it has gone on as long as it has,” Lake said. “The former public health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, and I used to have this discussion. We’d seen rises in overdose deaths in British Columbia in the 90s, for instance, and in every situation we got this return to normal, not that any death should be considered normal.”

While he praises the provincial government for its continuance and expansion of harm reduction practices, he says there needs to be a stronger national response that considers decriminalization.

“Any time you prohibit a substance, you’re going to have a lack of quality control of the substance,” Lake said.

Sandra Tully, a local member of Moms Stop The Harm, agrees.

“A person wouldn’t be criminalized for a small possession of illegal substances,” she said. “Now, the other flip side of that is if we go to safe supply, then we wouldn’t have illegal substances. So, I mean, they walk hand-in-hand.”

Tully lost her son, Ryan Pinneo, to an accidental overdose in 2016.

“Every time I see those numbers go up every month, I am just heartbroken knowing that other families are struggling with the grief that we have been struggling with.”

The global pandemic is being blamed, in part, for the increase in mental health issues that lead to drug use and a tainted drug supply. But, it has also provided an example of how people can work together in a crisis.

“If we’re to see a change in our numbers and we have thrown everything we have at COVID,” Tully said, “why are we not doing it for the opioid crisis as well?”