More than 160 British Columbians died of suspected drug overdoses in March, making it the second-deadliest month on record in the province's deepening opioid crisis.
Numbers released by the BC Coroners Service Thursday linked 161 fatalities to illicit drug overdoses—a 24 per cent increase over March 2017 and a 58 per cent increase over February of this year.
The only month on record that saw more opioid-related deaths was December 2016, when 162 people died.
The March figures bring the total number of overdose deaths to 391 in the first three months of 2018.
Fentanyl was detected in post-mortem testing in 83 per cent of those cases. Seven-in-10 people who died were adults between the ages of 19 and 49.
More than quarter of the fatalities occurred in the City of Vancouver alone.
"Every single death drives us to escalate our response and that's what we're doing," Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy told CTV News.
Most recently, the government introduced legislation cracking down on pill presses—machines that can be used to make illicit drugs. Free naloxone kits became available in pharmacies in December.
Darcy said the province has also moved to nearly double the number of overdose prevention sites since September and the number of new patients on new patients on opioid substitutions therapies is up 126 per cent.
"We are escalating our response every single day, every single week, every single month and we will continue to until we turn the tide on this terrible crisis," she said.
Despite the efforts, however, overdose deaths in 2018 are on par with record numbers seen last year, when 400 people died between January and the end of March.
Last month, a death review panel looking into the overdose crisis called for even more services to check for toxic drugs as well as the expansion of treatment programs.
Vancouver has seen an average of 34 deaths a month this year, up from last year's 30.5 during the same period.
More than 1,400 British Columbians died due to suspected illicit drug overdoses in 2017.
