About seven people died every two days due to an illicit drug overdose in January, according to the latest numbers from the BC Coroners Service.
Last month a total of 116 people died, a slight decrease from the peak of 142 deaths in December, prompting chief coroner Lisa Lapointe to urge those who are not drug dependent to avoid experimentation or any casual use of illicit drugs.
“The continuing high number of deaths shows that the risks remain extreme,” Lapointe said in a release.
The number of illicit drug overdose deaths in January is a 36.5% increase over the same month in 2016, when there were 85 such deaths.
Most of the deaths in January 2017 — the majority are men between 30 and 49 years old — were in Vancouver (45), Surrey (nine) and Kelowna (eight). The Tri-Cities were not listed in the report but the coroners service compiles cities with only one or two deaths into an “other township” category to protect peoples’ privacy; that group saw 27 illicit drug overdose deaths last month.
In comparing numbers among health authority regions, the number of illicit drug overdose deaths in Fraser Health went down while Vancouver Coastal and Vancouver Island matched or surpassed previous monthly highs.
The coroners service also noted that nearly all of the illicit drug overdose deaths (92.2%) happened inside, about half of them in private homes, while the remainder happened outside in vehicles, on sidewalks or streets or in parks.
There were no deaths at supervised consumption or overdose prevention sites.
Fentanyl is believed to account for the significant increase in illicit drug overdose deaths since 2012, since the number of deaths where fentanyl was not detected have remained relatively stable since 2011, with an average of about 293 deaths per year.
