Op/Ed: Ten Years into the Toxic Drug Crisis
By Contributor
There are moments when the toxic drug crisis becomes painfully real. A phone call in the middle of the night. A memorial growing on along the side of the Columbia River. A name spoken quietly among colleagues because another person didn’t make it. For many people in British Columbia, these moments are no longer rare. They are part of the fabric of the past decade.
On April 14, 2016, the province declared a public health emergency as overdose deaths began rising at an alarming rate. At the time, the scale of what was coming was difficult to comprehend. Ten years later, we are still living in that emergency.
Since that declaration, more than 18,000 people in British Columbia have died because of the toxic drug supply. That number is difficult to grasp. It is roughly the population of a small town – gone in a decade. It represents thousands of families whose lives changed forever and communities that have been living with a prolonged, collective grief.
Even now, the losses continue. In 2025, 1,826 British Columbians died from unregulated drug toxicity – about five people every day. While that number represents a slight decrease from previous years, it remains one of the leading causes of death in the province for people in their prime working and parenting years. Nearly 70 per cent of those who died were between 30 and 59 years old. Trail was 20th in the province in terms of death rates – now we are #12.
The numbers, however, only tell part of the story.
Behind every statistic is a person who mattered deeply to someone: a son or daughter, a friend, a co-worker, a neighbour. Many of these deaths happen quietly and out of sight, often in private homes, with people using alone. The crisis is both highly visible and profoundly hidden at the same time.
Over the past decade, British Columbia has also shown remarkable compassion and innovation in response. Peer workers, community advocates, health-care providers, and families have pushed for measures that once seemed politically impossible: widespread naloxone distribution, supervised consumption services, drug checking, and safer supply programs. These efforts have saved countless lives and created spaces where people who use substances are treated with dignity rather than judgment.
Local residents will have an opportunity to learn more at the upcoming “Respect and Connect” conference on May 26, 2026. Advance registration is FREE but is required for admission, as space is limited. Click this link for registration.
Many of these initiatives grew not from politics, but from necessity. Frontline workers and people with lived experience understood that when the drug supply becomes unpredictable and poisoned with powerful synthetic substances, survival itself becomes uncertain.
Yet ten years into this crisis, something else is happening.
Public and political support for people who use substances appears to be shifting. After a decade of devastating headlines, many people feel exhausted, frustrated, and uncertain about what is working. Communities are struggling with visible suffering and complex social challenges that can feel overwhelming.
In moments like this, it can be tempting to retreat into simpler explanations or harder punishments – to believe that compassion has been tried and failed.
But if the past decade has taught us anything, it is that stigma and punishment have never solved this crisis.
People are not dying simply because they use drugs. They are dying because the illegal drug supply, controlled by organized crime, has become extremely unpredictable and contaminated with powerful synthetic substances like fentanyl and veterinary anaesthetics such as Medetomidine. What someone thinks they are taking can be very different from what is in the drug.
Responding to that reality requires something difficult from all of us: the willingness to sit with discomfort- to not look away, to keep our hearts open and to respond to the crisis with understanding and leaning into the discomfort even more.
Compassionate approaches to substance use are not always easy to accept. Harm reduction challenges deeply held beliefs about responsibility, safety, and fairness. It asks us to care for people even when their struggles are complicated, visible, and sometimes frightening to witness.
Hardening our hearts will not bring back the thousands of people we have already lost, nor will it solve the ravages that come from the toxic drug supply.
If anything, the scale of the tragedy should push us toward more humanity, not less. It should remind us that the people dying in this crisis are members of our communities whose lives hold value, even when their paths are messy or misunderstood.
Ten years after the public health emergency was declared, the question facing British Columbia is not whether this crisis is difficult. It is whether we are willing to keep showing up for one another despite that difficulty.
Leaning into discomfort means continuing to search for solutions grounded in evidence and compassion. It means investing in treatment, housing, and prevention while also supporting harm reduction measures that keep people alive long enough to access help. It means listening to people with lived experience and recognizing their expertise.
The past decade has shown us the devastating cost of a toxic drug supply.
The next decade will reveal something else: whether we allow fear and frustration to harden our hearts, or whether we choose the harder – and more humane – path of compassion. We must not look away!
Author: Tammy McLean, Chair, Trail Community Action Team
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