Canada

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The isolation protocols of the COVID-19 pandemic that kept people from gathering in groups contributed to an increase in drug overdose deaths in British Columbia, says a health expert.

“After five years of telling people not to use alone, we told an entire population not to be with each other,” she said during an opening address at the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine conference.

B.C.’s overdose death rate is now two times higher than it was when the province declared a public health emergency in 2016 as the opioid fentanyl flooded the illicit market, she said.

The BC Coroners Service reports almost 13,000 people have died from illicit drug overdoses since the health emergency was declared.

needs more overdose prevention sites and a renewed commitment to decriminalization as it tries to curb drug poisonings that kill and average of six people a day.

She said the decriminalization debate has prompted reactions that have been uncomfortable at times, but likely give more attention to the issue.

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