Board Voice Executive Director Jody Paterson spotted a series of eight maps in the latest BC Centre for Disease Control report on the illicit toxic drug crisis and was so alarmed at the story they were telling that she made a two-minute video to bring home this staggering social catastrophe.
The devastating rise in illicit toxic drug deaths is a crisis that has no comparison. The number of deaths in BC from toxic drugs is now almost three times the number of deaths from motor vehicle accidents, homicides, suicides and prescription drugs combined. In the last seven years, more than 10,000 British Columbians have died from toxic drugs, three quarters of them men between the ages of 30 and 59.
Burgundy is the colour used by BCCDC in the maps to indicate the regions where deaths from toxic drugs are now occuring at a rate of 50 or more per 100,000. Watch how that colour takes over these maps, which depict toxic drug deaths 2015-22.