FATAL DRUG OVERDOSES FALLING ACROSS B.C., BUT STILL HIGH AMONG FIRST NATIONS

More than 900 B.C. residents died from accidental drug overdoses
between 2001 and 2005, but the first Canadian study to examine such
deaths showed that they fell by almost half in 2005.

The study, by the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, also found
that people from first nations accounted for a disproportionate
number of fatal overdoses. While first nations only make up four per
cent of the province's population, their members accounted for nearly
12 per cent of deaths.

Thomas Kerr, co-author of the study and co-director of the centre's
Urban Health Research Initiative, said in an interview that a heroin
"drought" from 2001 to 2003 may account for the decline in deaths
early in the period studied. The trend continued after Insite, the
Vancouver supervised-injection site, opened in 2003. As well, Kerr
gives credit to regional health authorities for getting serious about
"dramatically expanding" addiction treatment and harm-reduction programs.

While the drop in overdose deaths is encouraging, he said, the fact
that 104 of the 909 dead were members of first nations is troubling.
Kerr attributes that to poverty, substandard housing and education,
and "incredible health disparities" between aboriginals and the rest
of the population.

According to the B.C. Coroners Service, illicit-drug deaths peaked in
1998 at 418. The coroner data includes overdose deaths that may have
been intentional, while the study -- published in the journal
Addiction -- excludes any such cases. That explains why annual totals
listed in the coroner report range from 246 to 170 for the years
studied, while numbers in the centre's study range from 244 to 133.

Between 2006 and 2008 there was a further decline, according to the
coroner report: In 2006 there were 232 overdose deaths; in 2007, 200;
in 2008, there were 159, the lowest number yet (including possible
suicides) since 1991.

In the past decade, harm-reduction interventions such as
doctor-supervised methadone replacement therapy and Insite have
reduced the severity and number of overdoses.

Since the greatest number of deaths occur in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside, the Vancouver police department has also become involved in
strategies. Spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said that in 2006,
police revised their policy on overdose calls.

Based on research showing that injection drug users were less likely
to call for emergency assistance if they knew officers might show up,
police revised how they respond to non-fatal overdose cases.
Paramedics now respond alone, "and if it escalates into a safety
issue, then we will attend," McGuinness said, adding that the change
in policy may have played a role in helping to reduce deaths.

"If there are positive outcomes from this, then that's excellent," she said.