A local woman is encouraging residents to wear purple Friday for Overdose Awareness Day.
Kristen Meadows said she has been deeply impacted by the overdose epidemic and hopes people will wear a purple shirt or ribbon in memory of loved ones lost to an overdose.
In the first six months of this year, 742 people have died of a drug overdose in B.C.
About 80 per cent of the deaths are men, and 71 per cent of those are between the ages of 30 and 59 years old.
READ MORE: B.C. overdose deaths drop in June, but 100+ still dying each month
READ MORE: Drug overdoses continue to kill more than 3 people each day in B.C.: Coroner
Attorney General David Eby announced eariler this week that the province is headed to court to make drug companies pay for an opioid crisis that has claimed thousands of lives since 2016.
Eby and Mental Health and Addictions Minister Judy Darcy said B.C. is launching a class-action lawsuit against more than 40 opioid manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors.
More than 3,300 people have died in B.C. since the average death toll nearly doubled in 2016.
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