B-C’s chief coroner says illicit drug overdoses took more lives across the province in 2020 than have ever been lost in a single year due to an unnatural cause. Lisa Lapointe says 1,716 people died in B-C last year and the death rate of just over 33 per 100-thousand people tops fatalities from suicides, homicides, vehicle crashes and prescription drug deaths — combined. She says just as measures to control drug deaths were starting to pay off, the COVID-19 pandemic hit — driving people indoors where they used drugs alone and were helpless when an overdose occurred. In issuing her report, Lapointe repeated her call to decriminalize drugs so public health officials can offer more options to cut the harm linked to substance use.
