By Greg Fry

Interior Health bucks provincial illicit overdose trend

Aug 22, 2018 | 10:28 AM

KAMLOOPS — A sliver of good news in July’s provincial illicit overdose death numbers.

The BC Coroners Service says while the number of overdose deaths has risen month-over-month and year-over-year provincially, that isn’t the case in the Interior.

“The Interior Health Authority was the lone health authority that did not see an increase in the number of illicit drug overdose deaths month-over-month,” says Spokesperson Andy Watson. “So, that’s a good sign for the Interior.”

In Kamloops specifically, he says there have been 25 suspected illicit drug overdose deaths through the first seven months of 2018.

“That averages to 3.5 per month and that compares to 3.2 per month that we saw in 2017 for the entire year. So, we’re about on pace from where we were last year.”

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Provincially, Watson says there were 134 suspected drug overdoses in July in B.C., a 12 per cent increase over the number of deaths occurring in July, 2017 (120) and a 25 per cent increase over the number of deaths occurring in June, 2018 (107).

The three cities experiencing the highest number of illicit drug overdoses in 2018 are Vancouver, Surrey, and Victoria.

This year 88 per cent of drug overdose deaths occurred inside and there were no deaths at supervised consumption or drug overdose prevention sites.

by Greg Fry

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Interior Health bucks provincial illicit overdose trend

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