In 2016, the BC government declared overdoses a public health emergency due to the 474 reported overdose deaths that occurred in the province the year prior. In the 10 years that followed this declaration, BC used a series of policies to combat this crisis, including the expansion of supervised consumption sites, take home naloxone programs, the implementation of the safer supply program, and the decriminalization pilot program, with mixed results. The Peak spoke to SFU’s Dr. Kora DeBeck, distinguished professor of substance use and drug policy, to learn more about the effects these policies have had on the overdose crisis.
In tackling this crisis, BC has adopted programs aimed at adequately preparing to respond to overdoses. Part of this has been an expansion of supervised consumption sites, which provide opiate users with safe, supervised places to use their own drugs in the presence of professionals to prevent accidental overdoses. Despite what she noted to be a large amount of drug consumption sites being introduced to the province, DeBeck said, “I didn’t think it met the full needs of everybody in the communities, everybody that was at risk.” While the first drug consumption site was introduced in the province in 2003, this program was significantly expanded across the province following the public health emergency.
Another program the BC government has undertaken is the distribution of naloxone, a medication administered in order to reverse the effects of an opiate overdose. Naloxone kits have been made available at pharmacies and widespread take home naloxone sites without the need for a prescription since the pilot program in 2012, to distribute this life saving medication to people who are likely to witness overdoses or experience one themselves. DeBeck said “naloxone distribution has been very impressive” and “has made a huge amount of difference and saved a lot of lives.”
Another facet of BC’s approach has been an attempt to control the substances being used by people in the safer supply program. Since 2017, BC has been expanding the prescription of less dangerous opiate alternatives such as hydromorphone for people with opiate use disorder. This program has fallen under scrutiny for its reach; at safe supply’s peak, it was treating approximately 5,000 people of the estimated 100,000–200,000 people in the province with an opiate use disorder. However, the program only treated people with opiate use disorder, when “the majority of people who are dying of a toxic drug poisoning did not have an opiate use disorder and were not using opiates on a daily basis” and therefore remain unaided by this particular program, DeBeck said. This led DeBeck to describe safe supply’s reach as “a drop in the bucket” for what is needed.
Despite BC’s policy reform, the crisis is still in full swing. In 2025, BC’s annual death toll from drug overdoses climbed to 1,833; over three times the toll from 2014. DeBeck attributes this in part to BC’s refusal to abandon a criminalization approach, which views the consumption and possession of illegal drugs as a criminal offence.
“The police have never been a good tool for [combatting] drug use.”
— Kora DeBeck, SFU professor of substance use and drug policy
In January 2026, BC decided not to renew the three-year long decriminalization pilot program which commenced in 2023. The program allowed for the personal possession of up to 2.5 grams of controlled substances such as cocaine, methamphetamines, and opioids like heroin and morphine. The program’s expiry means illegal drug possession, once again, is subject to criminal enforcement, with punishments ranging from seizure of the drugs to months in prison. DeBeck warned, “From an evidence-based public health perspective, [criminalization] is absolutely the wrong approach to take around substance use and the overdose crisis.”
The Peak reached out to BC’s minister of health, Josie Osborne, for a statement, but did not receive a response by the publication deadline.
