People First Radio – April 16, 2026People First Radio – April 16, 2026
People First Radio
Focus falls on ten years of BC’s toxic drug emergency, with expert commentary on harm reduction policy and raw reflections from people who have lost loved ones. The episode questions political inaction, highlights peer-led responses, and stresses the ongoing human toll of an unregulated drug supply.
0:00•17 Apr 2026
Ten Years On: Grief, Rage and Hard Truths About BC’s Toxic Drug Crisis
Episode Overview
- The toxic drug crisis in BC remains a public health emergency, with deaths now roughly double the level that first triggered the declaration in 2016.
- Key early responses included province-wide free naloxone and community-run overdose prevention sites led by people who use drugs.
- Decriminalisation of personal possession was introduced years after experts first called for it, then ended in 2026 without the housing and support investments seen in examples like Portugal.
- Prescribed safer supply was shown to prevent overdoses but has been narrowed by increased restrictions, making access especially difficult outside urban centres.
- Family members and peer workers stress that stigma, judgment and lack of basic respect are deadly, and call for treating people who use drugs as people first and last.
“I just needed somebody to treat me like I was a real person.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety and survival when the system itself feels stuck? This People First Radio episode centres on the toxic drug crisis in British Columbia, 10 years after it was declared a public health emergency, and asks why five people a day are still dying. Host Joe Pugh speaks with Dr Bernie Pauly, a nurse and scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and the University of Victoria.
She lays out how an increasingly volatile, unregulated drug supply – driven by fentanyl and later benzodiazepines – pushed deaths from around 200 a year to double the 2016 levels. Bernie explains what the emergency declaration made possible, from free naloxone rolled out through drug user networks to “novel and nimble” overdose prevention sites run by communities and people who use drugs. Policy is a major thread here.
Bernie walks through the promise and rollback of harm reduction measures: decriminalisation that arrived years late and was then cancelled, and prescribed safer supply that started as an emergency lifeline and has since been restricted with strict witnessed dosing. She asks bluntly whether this has become “an emergency in name only” and stresses the need for a regulated drug supply, saying, “We regulate food, we regulate water, we regulate alcohol.” The episode also holds space for grief and rage.
Amanda Farrell‑Low and Stephanie Harrington, who both lost brothers to toxic drug poisoning, share how they channel pain into action and mutual support.
Their signs read lines like “put the urgency in emergency” and they describe secrecy and stigma as “part of what kills people.” Sarah Lee from the Nanaimo Area Network of Drug Users brings it back to basic humanity: “I just needed somebody to treat me like I was a real person.” Her story of loss, homelessness and finally stable housing shows how peer‑run groups can literally pull someone “out of the ditch”.
If you care about addiction, harm reduction or simply how we treat each other, this conversation asks hard questions and refuses to let the urgency fade.
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