Deaths from toxic drugs in British Columbia have dropped by a third over the past year, a period that coincides with the NDP government's curbs on open drug use, safer supply, and decriminalization. The chief coroner's latest report shows 119 people died from suspected unregulated drug toxicity in April 2026, down from 174 in the same month last year.
Coroner cautions on data
Chief Coroner Dr. Jatinder Baidwan did not draw conclusions about the reasons for the decline. He cautioned that the data is preliminary and subject to change as additional toxicological results are received and investigations conclude.
However, these statistics fall at the end of a period when the New Democrats executed a series of reversals on harm-reduction policies adopted in response to the toxic drug crisis.
Policy reversals timeline
- In 2024, the government worked with the federal government to recriminalize open drug use in most public spaces in B.C.
- In 2025, the government began insisting on witnessed consumption of safer supply drugs, ending open-air drug markets outside pharmacies.
- At the outset of 2026, the government allowed the three-year decriminalization experiment to expire, branding it a mistake and a failure.
Premier David Eby acknowledged each backdown and the reasons for it. In curbing open drug use two years ago, he told reporters: “I absolutely accept the critique that these authorities are needed and have been needed for a while. That should have been in place. Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, the police needed those authorities.”
Eby conceded the New Democrats had been too concerned about removing the stigma on drug use and relied too much on existing laws against public intoxication to prevent the worst excesses.
On safer supply, after a leaked PowerPoint from the health ministry confirmed critics' concerns, Eby restricted access to the drugs. “It is essential that these programs are structured in a way that prevents unintended consequences, including the illegal redistribution of prescribed substances,” he told the legislature in February 2025. “That’s why we’re moving to witnessed ingestion.”
Then late last year, the premier said B.C. had no intention of asking the federal government to renew Health Canada’s exemption for decriminalization. “I was wrong on decriminalization and the effect that it would have,” Eby conceded in a November speech. “What it became was a permissive structure — that it was OK to use drugs anywhere.”
