There were nine toxic drug deaths in Vernon through the first three months of 2025.
The BC Coroners Service released data on drug-toxicity deaths across the province for the first quarter of the year on Wednesday, May 14.
Vernon's nine deaths puts the city on pace to see 36 total drug deaths this year, if the trend continues. That would be down 16 per cent from 2024 when there were 43 deaths, and would be the lowest total since 2020.
Overall, there have been 428 unregulated drug deaths in B.C. this year, putting the province on pace for just over 1,700 deaths, which would also be a five-year low.
The demographic hit hardest by drug deaths in B.C. is young to middle-aged men.
"In the first three months of 2025, deaths among those between the ages of 30 and 59 accounted for 67 per cent of drug-toxicity deaths in the province, and 76 per cent were male," the Coroners Service said in a release.
There are some positive trends with this latest data release. March marked the sixth consecutive month in which the number of unregulated toxic drug deaths reported in B.C. was below 160.
The number of unregulated drug deaths in B.C. in February and March equals about 4.7 and 4.6 per day.
The highest number of deaths in the first quarter this year are in the Fraser (141) and Vancouver Coastal (114) health authorities, making up 60 per cent of all such deaths this year. The Interior Health Authority has seen 78 deaths.
The highest rates of deaths reported were in the Interior and Northern Health (35 per 100,000).
Smoking remains the main method of consuming unregulated toxic drugs, with 62 per cent of investigations indicating a person who died smoked their substances.
Fentanyl and its analogues continue to be the most common substance found in toxicological testing. Fentanyl was detected in 70 per cent of fatal overdoses, followed by methamphetamine (50 per cent) and fluorofentanyl (47 per cent). The 70 per cent is, however, the lowest since 2017.
