In 2016, there were 30 drug overdose deaths in Langley. That was a 200 per cent increase over the previous year, and in more than half of those deaths (53 per cent), the opioid fentanyl was detected.
By the end of March this year, another nine people in Langley had lost their lives to an overdose. If the trend continues, 2017 will be an even deadlier year than its predecessor.
Sadly, none of this information is overly surprising anymore. Over the past few years we’ve become inured to the numbers, even as they grow by leaps and bounds with every new set of figures released by Fraser Health Authority.
And, like most people (I assume) I thought I had a pretty good handle on who was falling victim to this crisis.
I lost a relative to a drug overdose in early 2016. I’m sorry to admit, we hadn’t been close for a number of years, but he was far too young — not yet 30 — to simply be gone.
Yet he certainly fit my image of the ‘typical’ overdose victim — a regular user who had battled addiction for a number of years, managing to occasionally get clean, then relapsing, until the day he took his final, fatal dose.
You might be surprised to learn — as I was — that the average victim isn’t, in fact, someone who is homeless or a hardcore addict (though many who fit that description have lost their lives to overdose), it’s actually men in their 30s, 40s and 50s. And many of them are educated professionals with steady jobs and good incomes.
That’s information that should come as a wake-up call to all of us, not least, employers.
At its May dinner meeting, Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce members heard exactly that message from a pair of speakers from Langley Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Robert Anthony, an ER physician at LMH, and Jason Cook, executive director for LMH and Langley Health Services, offered the business community some insight into how their own workers and colleagues may be at risk of dying from a hit.
In fact, before the May 16 meeting, Dr. Anthony revealed, the person who had most recently died of an overdose on his table in the Langley ER was a high level bank employee.
The Chamber hosts a dinner meeting every month, where members get together to network and learn something new about the local business community. It’s a rare occasion when what they get is advice on how to help keep their employees alive.
Among the signs they were advised to watch for — unexplained weight loss.
A handout left at every seat further recommended talking to staff about the risks of drug use, displaying posters, having staff trained in CPR and doing regular bathroom checks. The sad truth is, though, if someone is so determined to use that they’re willing to risk death, a conversation isn’t going to stop them.
With respect to fentanyl overdoses, Cook said, Langley is “up there with Surrey and Vancouver. There is a crisis in Langley.”
And it’s affecting people across the social spectrum.
The stigma surrounding drug use — that it’s something that puts only certain people at risk — has to change, said Cook, after showing the crowd a video made by students at Walnut Grove Secondary, following the deaths of two former students.
“It’s not the homeless population and the disenfranchised,” said Cook. “It’s everywhere, it’s your neighbours, employees, family, friends and kids.”
“People are dying in their own homes.
“If it hasn’t touched you yet, it’s going to touch you.”
