International Overdose Awareness Day: RCY Urges Awareness, Compassion, and Action
Press Release
Victoria – Nine years into B.C.’s toxic drug crisis, first declared a public health emergency by the Provincial Health Officer in 2016, children and youth remain among those most deeply impacted. On International Overdose Awareness Day (August 31), B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) is raising awareness that young people are experiencing harms from increasingly toxic substances, losing
parents, siblings, and friends to overdose, and carrying grief, trauma, and disruption in their lives. “This crisis is impacting young lives every day,” said Dr. Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth. “We need to stop imagining that the solution is simply to ‘say no to drugs.’ It is about building systems of support that meet young people and their families where they are, systems that understand the risks, reduce harm, and respond with compassion.”
International Overdose Awareness Day is about more than statistics. It is a time to remember lives lost, to confront stigma, and to commit to treating every person with compassion and dignity. It is also a call to strengthen our connections with one another, to listen to the voices of young people and families, and to foster a sense of belonging rather than shame. It requires a commitment to equity, ensuring that
every young person has fair access to healthcare, harm reduction, and evidence-based support. And it is a demand for justice, addressing the systemic racism, poverty, and discrimination that leave young people more vulnerable to harm.
The Representative states that stigma keeps many young people silent, even when they need help most. For some, substance use becomes a coping mechanism in the absence of healing opportunities. It is deeply connected to mental health challenges, child welfare involvement, violence and exploitation, systemic racism, and structural poverty. Some young people are simply experimenting, like every generation before them has, and will continue to do, but the substances available today are often lethal and morphing daily.
Between 2019 and June 2025, 159 young people under the age of 19 died from toxic drugs, according to the BC Coroner’s Service. Unregulated drug toxicity has become the leading cause of death among youth aged 10 to 27 in B.C. In 2024, paramedics responded to 2,330 toxic drug poisonings among youth in British Columbia, the equivalent of six overdoses every day. This represents only the tip of the iceberg, as evidence shows many young people experience drug poisonings without ever receiving medical intervention.
“These numbers remind us that this is not just about coroner’s counts,” Dr. Charlesworth said. “Every statistic represents a child whose life has been catastrophically altered through death, brain injury, or lifelong emotional harm. Families and communities are carrying these losses in ways that cannot be measured.”
Over the past year, the Representative’s office has been working to address this crisis by meeting with more than 400 people across the province, including professionals, parents, and young people with lived and living experience. Insights from these conversations are shaping an upcoming report on the toxic drug crisis, to be released this fall.
RCY is calling on all British Columbians to be part of the change by challenging stigma, talking openly about substance use, listening with compassion, and supporting efforts to keep young people safe. Awareness begins with each of us, and together we can build a culture of care. Young people in B.C. deserve nothing less.
IHT5
