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Number of deaths due to drug overdose this year hits 30 in Abbotsford

BC Coroner Service releases first four months of data on unregulated drug deaths
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Based on the first four months of 2023, Chilliwack is leading the eastern Fraser Valley in an unenviable statistic. (BC Coroner’s Service)

The rate of deaths from drug overdose in 2023 in Abbotsford remains steadily similar to the previous two years.

New data released by the BC Coroner’s Service shows that Abbotsford had 30 deaths from unregulated drugs in the first four months of the year. Chilliwack was similar at 29 deaths in that time, but with a smaller population has the highest rate of death in the Fraser region at 77.9 per 100,000 people.

Mission’s death rate is next highest at 59.8, followed by Abbotsford at 52.3. Chilliwack’s neighbours to the east are faring better by comparison. Agassiz/Harrison has one death so far this year and a death rate of 26.8 while Hope has one death and a death rate of 32.6.

If the rate were to stay the same through the year, Abbotsford will likely see about 90 unregulated drug deaths this year. Last year, that number was 94 and the year prior was 86, with the numbers trending down toward the beginning of the drug overdose epidemic in 2016.

The coroner report does not break down the ages per community, but so far this year, eight youth ages 18 or younger have died from unregulated drugs. There have been 107 unregulated drug deaths in the 19-29 age group.

Fentanyl and offshoots like carfentanyl continue to be the most dangerous drugs. Province-wide, 87.4 per cent of all unregulated drug deaths involve them and in the Fraser region specifically that number rises to 92.2 per cent.

“Illicit fentanyl continues to be the main and most lethal driver of B.C.’s drug-toxicity public-health emergency, having been detected in 86 per cent of deaths in 2022 and 79 per cent of deaths in 2023,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “Cocaine, methamphetamines and/or benzodiazapines are also often present. This drug poisoning crisis is the direct result of an unregulated drug market. Members of our communities are dying because non-prescribed, non-pharmaceutical fentanyl is poisoning them on an unprecedented scale.”

Province-wide numbers show men dying at a far greater rate than women, 620 to 194 so far this year. Those numbers have remained steady for the last decade, with men accounting for between 76 and 82 per cent of deaths and women accounting for 18 to 24 per cent. At least 12,046 British Columbians have been lost since the toxic drugs public-health emergency was first declared in April 2016.

The BC Coroner’s Service says 83 per cent of deaths happened inside, 48 per cent in private residences and 35 per cent in places like social and supportive housing, single room occupancy (SRO), shelters, hotels. Only 16 per cent happened outside.

-with files from Eric Welsh, Black Press

READ MORE: 814 people died from toxic drugs in the first 4 months of 2023: BC Coroners Service


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Jessica Peters

About the Author: Jessica Peters

I began my career in 1999, covering communities across the Fraser Valley ever since.
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