The BC Coroners Service has released its numbers on drug overdose deaths for August.
Overall, there were 79 deaths this year, which is down 37 per cent from the previous August. However, deaths were up 13 per cent compared to July.
So far in 2019, there have been 690 people killed by an overdose, which is down 33 per cent over the same time period last year when there were 1,037. Breaking the numbers down shows that 71 per cent of those dying were between the ages of 30 and 59.
If you stretch it out to 19 to 59, it becomes 89 per cent with men making up 77 per cent all overdose deaths this year. Fentanyl has been found in 85 per cent of all overdose deaths in British Columbia this year and last year.
There still have been no deaths reported at any of the province’s supervised consumption or drug overdose prevention sites.
