File photo (Image credit: CFJC Today).

By Aaron Schulze

Toxic Drug Crisis

Kamloops loses 11 more lives due to toxic drug crisis, on pace for second deadliest year

Jul 30, 2024 | 9:27 AM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops lost 11 more lives over the past two months due to the toxic drug crisis.

New figures through June released Tuesday (July 30) by the BC Coroners Service show 45 deaths due to toxic drugs in Kamloops as of June 2024, up from 34 as of April.

Kamloops is on pace to lose 90 lives due to drug toxicity in 2024. It would be the community’s second deadliest record, only trailing 92 fatalities in 2022.

Overall, B.C. saw 181 and 185 suspected unregulated drug deaths in May and June respectively, pushing the year-to-date total to 1,158. Twenty-nine and 34 of those deaths were recorded in Interior Health for a year-to-date total of 189.

By health service delivery area, the coroners service says the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap has lost 70 lives in 2024 for a death rate of 53.5 per 100,000 residents.

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“Fentanyl continues to be the driver of unregulated drug-toxicity deaths, detected in 82% of expedited toxicological tests conducted so far in 2024,” the coroners state.

B.C.’s deadliest record is 2,546 drug fatalities in one year in 2023.

The coroners service’s figures can be viewed here.