In honour of Overdose Awareness Day on Monday, Ankors in Cranbrook held a rally and a march from its building over to Rotary Park.
In light of rising overdose deaths in B.C. and Canada, Ankors members and concerned Cranbrook citizens gathered to bring awareness to the growing issue of drug toxicity.
In July, 175 British Columbians died from an overdose, with two occurring in the East Kootenay.
“We’re here to show solidarity as our people are dying at an ever-increasing rate because of drug toxicity,” said Patrick Evans, a speaker at Monday’s rally.
909 people in B.C. have died from drug toxicity so far in 2020, 11 of which have been in the East Kootenay.
More: BC Coroners Service reports 175 suspected overdose deaths in July (August 25, 2020)
Evans said the launch of the East Kootenay Network of People who Use Drugs, a non-profit advocacy group aimed at helping drug users across the region.
A push to introduce a supervised consumption site among other addictions and health care services in the region for East Kootenay residents was mentioned at the rally.
“This would act as a nexus entry-point into the system that would allow our people to have access to care. We are a hard-to-reach population,” explained Evans. “We want to see more health care dollars for the East Kootenay, we want walk-in clinic, we want a dedicated addictions physician. Currently, the doctor who is administering addiction medicine in the East Kootenay has two other specialties in oncology and palliative care, and she is given one day a week to work out of the office.”
Evans added that B.C. is a world leader in drug use treatment, with people from around the world learning from actions taken by the BCCDC.
A set of guidelines have been set out by the B.C. Government to help out drug users through the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Evans said more needs to be done on a local level.
“Provincial healthcare regulatory bodies put out the risk mitigation guidelines to help people who use drugs survive the COVID crisis. The guidelines are mostly in place to combat the border closure, increased seizures and increasing toxicity in the drug supply. We’re seeing them being rolled out very sporadically across the province, we’re certainly very far behind the ball here in the East Kootenay,” explained Evans.
According to Evans, a significant step towards reduced overdose deaths would be to end the stigmatization of drug users.
“It’s really the stigma and the discrimination of people who use drugs that kills them. Fentanyl might be the smoking gun, as they say, but at the end of the day, people who are using and overdosing alone are doing so because of the shame, stigma and discrimination created by criminalization and archaic policies that are in place,” Evans said to MyEastKooenayNow.com. “we have an opportunity to be a world leader in addiction treatment, substance use and mental health treatment, because of our smaller and more rural setting, it won’t take a lot.”
A vigil to honour those who died from overdose is scheduled for Monday evening at 7:00 in Cranbrook’s Rotary Park.
