For Immediate Release

April 14, 2026

Ten Years In: A Crisis Being Normalized

Today marks ten years since British Columbia declared a public health emergency in response to the toxic drug poisoning crisis. More than 18,000 people have died. These deaths were preventable. They remain preventable. What has become most alarming is not only the scale of loss, but how normalized this crisis has become. A declared emergency has been allowed to settle into the background of everyday life. Death on this scale is now treated as expected. Managed. Absorbed.

This normalization is a political choice. Decision-makers have the power to address the drivers of this emergency—and have chosen not to.

Across British Columbia, there has been a clear shift away from evidence-based public health responses toward policies shaped by misinformation, disinformation, and moral panic. Narratives of “public safety” and “community disorder” are driving decision-making, reinforcing stigma and expanding criminalization.

The rollback of decriminalization, the failure to keep pace with an increasingly toxic and unpredictable drug supply, and the expansion of involuntary drug treatment all point in the same direction. Coercive interventions are being advanced under the language of compassion and urgency. Policy framing presents these measures as necessary responses to crisis conditions, positioning state control as care while diverting attention from structural drivers of harm.

Emergency rhetoric has also lowered the threshold for what is considered acceptable. Exceptional measures are normalized, while proven interventions—safer supply, harm reduction, voluntary care, housing, and social supports—remain stalled or politically deprioritized. The result is a policy environment that expands surveillance, coercion, and control, while preventable deaths continue.

This is not a knowledge gap. The evidence exists. The recommendations have been consistent for years. This is a failure of action. It also reflects a form of weaponized incompetence—a sustained refusal to implement evidence-based responses alongside the active advancement of policies known to produce harm.

Harm reduction is a core component of public health. When it is undermined, people die.

People who use drugs, families, and communities across this province continue to lead where governments have stalled. We stand with and echo demands emerging from people who use drugs and community-led movements across British Columbia:

  • Preserve and expand harm reduction, including safer supply, low-barrier detox, and person-centered, culturally appropriate care that actually works.
  • End the violent and discriminatory targeting, displacement, and criminalization of people who use drugs, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and those who are unhoused.
  • End drug prohibition and create a regulated system shaped by and for the people most impacted.
  • Invest in dignified, non-market, community-controlled housing across the province.

(Learn more: druguserliberation.ca/warondrugscampaign)

Nurses work within these systems every day, and we see their limits clearly. We see what happens when people are left to navigate a poisoned drug supply with inadequate support. We also see the strength, care, and leadership of people who use drugs and the communities that continue to keep each other alive.

As nurses, we are accountable to the people we care for. That means speaking out when policy creates harm, and continuing to show up alongside communities even when governments and institutions fail to act. We will continue to provide care, to build trust, and to stand with those most impacted by this crisis.

Ten years into a declared emergency, this continued inaction is indefensible. Every day this crisis is normalized, more lives are lost.

Media Contact: Corey Ranger, President, Harm Reduction Nurses Association | hrna.aiirm@gmail.com