This month marks 10 years since British Columbia declared a public health emergency due to rapidly rising deaths and injuries caused by unregulated drugs.
In the past decade, more than 18,000 people across B.C. were taken from family and friends due to unregulated drug poisoning. In Island Health, over 2,700 people have lost their lives since 2016. These are not abstract numbers - each death represents a person who was loved and is deeply missed by family, friends, coworkers and entire communities.
This public health emergency is a complex challenge that defies a single solution. Despite the extraordinary efforts of people across our health system and communities, the unregulated drug supply and the stigma faced by people who use substances continue to cause serious harm. This crisis is driven by an increasingly unpredictable and unregulated drug supply, alongside broader social and health challenges including trauma, mental illness, housing insecurity, and the ongoing impacts of colonization, poverty and systemic racism. This crisis cannot be solved by health care alone. Lives are still being lost and the crisis remains one of the greatest societal challenges we face.
Today, Island Health acknowledges the profound grief associated with approaching a decade of the toxic drug crisis. We also recognize the resilience and leadership of people with lived and living experience, peer workers, Indigenous partners, community organizations, first responders, and health‑care staff who show up every day with compassion and determination to save lives and reduce harms. Together they continue to try to reduce the impacts of this crisis by expanding access to overdose prevention and supervised consumption services, distributing and expanding access to take‑home naloxone across our communities, improving access to evidence‑based treatment and strengthening outreach services for people facing significant barriers to care.
These interventions have saved lives and we know there is so much more that needs to be done.
As we mark this somber milestone, our focus remains clear: we must continue to prevent deaths and reduce harm while strengthening the long‑term supports that help people stay well. This means working across sectors to strengthen community and social support and inclusion, improve access to stable housing, culturally safe and trauma‑informed care, mental health supports, and treatment and recovery services while continuing to expand evidence‑based harm‑reduction measures that keep people alive and provide a path to wellness.
Today, we pause to remember the lives that have been lost and to honour the families and communities who continue to carry this grief. We do so with a renewed commitment to action, guided by evidence, compassion, and respect for human dignity.
Every life matters, and every preventable death is one too many.