By Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee [Editor\u2019s note: This article talks about overdose fatalities, including of youths, and the ongoing toxic drug crisis\u2019s outsized impact on First Nations people.] There were fewer drug poisonings, overdoses and fatalities in 2025, compared with 2024. But British Columbia is still in the midst of a brutal unregulated toxic drug overdose crisis, according to recent updates from BC Emergency Health Services and the BC Coroners Service. So far more than 19,053 British Columbians have been killed since early 2014, when unregulated fentanyl started showing up in the illicit drug supply. The province declared a public health emergency in April 2016 to address an unprecedented increase in deaths. This April, that public health emergency will have been in place for a full… <\/p>\n
By Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee [Editor\u2019s note: This article talks about overdose fatalities, including of youths, and the ongoing toxic drug crisis\u2019s outsized impact on First Nations people.] There were fewer drug poisonings, overdoses and fatalities in 2025, compared with 2024. But British Columbia is still in the midst of a brutal unregulated toxic drug overdose crisis, according to recent updates from BC Emergency Health Services and the BC Coroners Service. So far more than 19,053 British Columbians have been killed since early 2014, when unregulated fentanyl started showing up in the illicit drug supply. The province declared a public health emergency in April 2016 to address an unprecedented increase in deaths. This April, that public health emergency will have been in place for a full... <\/p>\n