Photo: Colin Dacre

An overdose prevention site in Kelowna

Preliminary data from the BC Coroners Service shows more than 400 people have died in B.C. from the toxic drug supply since the start of the year, 78 of them in the Interior Health service area.

According to the BC Coroners Service numbers, 132 people in February and 143 people in March died due to illicit drug toxicity — approximately 4.7 and 4.6 deaths per day respectively.

The highest rates of deaths in 2025 so far were reported in Interior Health and Northern Health — about 35 per 100,000 people.

Interior Health saw 21 deaths in January, 35 in February and 22 in March for a total of 78. That’s 24 less than the same time period last year, good for a decrease of 23.5 per cent.

According to the data, 25 of the deaths were in Kelowna, 11 were in Kamloops, nine were in Vernon and three were in Penticton.

By region, that’s 49 deaths in the Okanagan, 22 in the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap, four in Kootenay Boundary and three in East Kootenay.

Trending downward

There were a reported 428 unregulated drug deaths in B.C. from January to March.

The BC Coroners Service said March marked the sixth consecutive month in which the number of deaths reported by the Coroners Service attributed to unregulated drug toxicity was below 160.

“Consistent with reporting throughout the public-health emergency, fentanyl and its analogues continue to be the most common substance detected in expedited toxicological testing,” the BC Coroners Service said.

“More than three-quarters of decedents who underwent expedited testing in 2025 were found to have fentanyl in their systems (70 per cent), followed by methamphetamine (50 per cent) and fluorofentanyl (47 per cent).”

Deaths in Fraser and Vancouver Coastal Health authorities were the highest in the province, with 141 and 114 deaths respectively — about 60 per cent of the unregulated drug toxicity deaths in 2025.

In the first three months of 2025, 67 per cent of the deaths were people between the ages of 30 and 59 and 76 per cent were male. About 45 per cent of deaths were reported to have occurred in private residences and 20 per cent outdoors.

Vancouver has had the highest number of deaths in 2025 so far with 97, Surrey saw 52 deaths and Greater Victoria had 28.

According to new data from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, American drug overdose deaths in 2024 fell by 27 per cent — the largest one-year decline ever recorded.