The BC Coroners Service reports unregulated toxic drugs killed 187 BC residents in August and 183 in September.
That amounts to an average of about six people per day. Fentanyl was detected in 85% of those deaths in September.
Greater Victoria had the third-highest number of unregulated drug toxicity deaths in the province during September. With 16 deaths of this nature, our region was only topped by the 45 deaths in Vancouver and 19 deaths in Surrey.
The preliminary data finds that since January at least 1,749 people have died from unregulated drug toxicity. The data for the first 9 months of 2024 represents an 8 per cent drop from the number of deaths over the same period in 2023.
77 per cent of unregulated drug deaths in September were males, up from the year-to-date figure of 74 per cent in 2024. Meanwhile, 26 per cent of deaths related to unregulated drug toxicity were females in 2024.
Notably, 48 per cent of unregulated drug deaths in September were people between the ages of 30 and 49.