BC’s harm reduction: highest drug deaths

BC’s harm reduction strategy leads Canada in highest opioid drug deaths after billions spent. Daphne Bramham sums up 20 years of failed drug experiments.


“But finally, maybe, now only the barest minority people believe that it’s enough to provide an endless supply of free, “safe” drugs to keep people breathing, but barely alive. Since the health emergency was declared, billions have been spent, 11,000 have died and the crisis has only deepened.” 🔎  🧐

In 2022 — the seventh year of a public health emergency — the number of British Columbians who died due to the toxic supply of street drugs was the second highest on record, at least 2,272.🤔

In March 2020, it was the first jurisdiction in the world to offer free pharmaceutical-grade heroin, benzodiazepines and alcohol to addicts by prescription but without the requirement that they be taken under medical supervision.

It was first in North America to have a supervised injection site, a government-funded supply of pharmaceutical replacements for illicit drugs and a vending machine that dispenses pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

One of the first to establish a methadone program, B.C. followed that by enhanced access to other opioid substitution therapies including suboxone and hydromorphone (pharmaceutical-grade heroin).”