A newly released report from BC’s Select Standing Committee on Health has brought forward 37 recommendations to stem the province’s on-going toxic drug crisis.
Since the province declared it a public health emergency in 2016, more than 10,500 people have lost their lives to illicit drug overdoses.
With an estimated 5.7 deaths per day in September, illicit overdoses are the province’s leading cause of unnatural death.
Since April, the Committee has received 881 written submissions, and heard from 118 presenters, to form the 37 recommendations.
Among the recommendations are: expanding the availability of education, treatment, and harm reduction services, as well as less police envolvement.
They also ask the province to collect data on the proposed 2.5 gram decriminalization threshold, and to support successful decriminalization efforts.
It calls for collaboration with Health Authorities on a safer supply of prescribed substances, and with Port Authorities to disrupt the importing of illicit substances.
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