Interior Health saw 21 unregulated drug-related deaths in January, but none in the Kootenay region.
According to the BC Coroners Service, that’s 2.3 deaths in the Interior per 100,000 people.
These deaths occurred in the Okanagan (13) and the Thompson Cariboo Shuswap (8) Health Service Delivery Areas, with zero in the East Kootenays or the Kootenay Boundary.
This represents a slight decline to the 31 deaths reported in January of 2024 which saw two in the East Kootenays, one in the Kootenay Boundary, and 28 between the Okanagan and Thompson Cariboo Shuswap regions.
Provincially, there were 152 suspected unregulated drug deaths in January of 2025, an increase from the 149 deaths reported in the same month last year, equating to roughly 4.9 deaths per day.
About 68 per cent of these deaths were among people aged 30 to 59, with 79 per cent being male.
The highest number of deaths occurred in the Fraser (57) and Vancouver (45) health authority regions, which together accounted for 67 per cent of all such deaths in 2025.
Smoking was the most common method of consumption at 57 per cent, followed by nasal insufflation (14 per cent), injection (13 per cent), and oral consumption (4 per cent).
Fentanyl was detected in 77 per cent of unregulated drug deaths that underwent toxicology testing, followed by methamphetamine (52 per cent) and bromazolam (46 per cent).
A more detailed summary can be found here.
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