At its Aug. 17 meeting, Nelson council agreed to write to the federal government asking it to declare the overdose crisis a national public health emergency as requested by the Rural Empowered Drug Users Network (REDUN), a local group.
The group also asked council for funding, which council denied, referring the group instead to the Community Initiatives Program, in which council annually distributes Columbia Basin Trust funds to local non-profit groups. The next intake for this process will be in 2022.
REDUN originally made these requests to city council at its June 29 committee of the whole meeting. The group operates in conjunction with ANKORS in Nelson, and described itself as “a group of people with lived and living experience of illicit drug use. We provide support, education, and advocacy by and for people who use drugs.”
The group’s mission is to “help create an environment that supports the dignity, respect, health, safety and human rights of current and former drug users.”
REDUN’s outreach work includes the clean-up of improperly disposed-of drug use supplies.
In its presentation to council, the group included statistics from the BC Coroners Service for the month of May, in which there were 177 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in B.C. in 2020. In the same month in 2021, there were 160, amounting to 5.2 deaths per day.
The Coroners Service data also shows 1,728 deaths in the province in 2020.
In Nelson, six people died of overdoses in 2020.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported that 17 Canadians per day died from opioids in 2020.
Related:
• Six people died of overdoses in Nelson in 2020
• Parallel crises: How COVID-19 exacerbated B.C.’s drug overdose emergency
• Seventeen Canadians per day died from opioids in 2020: Public Health Agency of Canada
• B.C. marks 14th month of 100+ deaths as 176 people fatally overdose in April
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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