Burnaby made a terrible list last week.
Our city was one of 20 B.C. communities identified by the provincial government as urgently needing to improve the response to drug overdoses.
It wasn’t meant as a criticism of Burnaby; it was merely a reflection of the terrible toll this crisis is taking on people who live here.
There were more than 44 illicit drug overdose deaths in Burnaby in 2017.
According to data from the B.C. Coroners Service, last year’s deaths are higher than those from 2013, 2014 and 2015 combined (40). There were 39 deaths in 2016.
That’s a staggering increase, requiring a rapid response. The province announced Burnaby will receive up to $100,000 to create a working group to assess the city’s available addiction- and overdose-related resources, and to create a plan to prevent overdose deaths and support those with addictions through treatment and recovery.
Burnaby’s newly formed Community Action Team – a group of front-line community agencies, city representatives, experts and those with “lived experience” of drug addictions – are in the final stages of completing a grant application to access the province’s new Community Overdose Crisis Innovation Fund.
According to one Burnaby person involved in the CAT, one of the problems is too many people consider this more of a Vancouver problem.
Michel Pouliot, executive director of Burnaby Family Life, told the NOW that although there aren’t as many deaths as in Vancouver, the crisis here is significant.
“We don’t talk about it a lot; we tend to think about the overdose crisis as being a Downtown Eastside kind of crisis, but it’s very significant even here in Burnaby, and we need to have a co-ordinated community response.”
So, this is the point of this editorial – to talk about the problem. We all need to acknowledge that Burnaby is a great place to live, but that too many people are dying because they’ve used drugs alone and have overdosed.
Admitting we have a problem doesn’t diminish our community. There shouldn’t be a stigma attached to this admission.
One of the outcomes of the new funding is a possible community dialogue series to address the stigmas. Another goal is education for users about how to reduce some of the risks, such as not using alone.
The more we talk about this, the more people are educated on the subject. That leads to people using drugs in a safer way. It also leads to people being trained in the use of naloxone – a medication that can save the life of someone who has overdosed.
Let’s all get involved in being part of the solution.
