Eby’s Drug-Crisis Victory Lap Problem: 109 Dead in May

“Lowest since 2020” is not a victory lap when 109 families are still facing a funeral.

The BC Coroners Service says preliminary data show 109 people in British Columbia died from suspected unregulated-drug toxicity in May 2026. The government bulletin translated that number into the measure that matters most: approximately 3.5 deaths per day.

Yes, the same release says May 2026 was the lowest monthly total reported by the Coroners Service since February 2020, when 79 deaths were recorded. That is a fact. It is also not permission for Premier David Eby’s government to treat the crisis as solved, contained or politically managed.

A lower month is still a devastating month when 109 people are dead. After years of emergency language, policy experiments, supportive-housing promises, treatment announcements, safer-supply arguments and public-safety reversals, British Columbians deserve more than selective good-news framing. They deserve a government willing to measure success by lives saved, not by whether the latest news release sounds less catastrophic than the last one.

The May update also shows who is still being lost. During the first five months of 2026, people aged 30 to 59 accounted for 68 per cent of drug-toxicity deaths, and 76 per cent of those who died were male. By health authority, Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health recorded the highest 2026 totals — 169 and 166 deaths respectively — together making up 53 per cent of the provincial total.

Where people are dying matters just as much. So far in 2026, the Coroners Service says 81 per cent of unregulated-drug deaths occurred indoors, including private residences, social and supportive housing, single-room occupancies, shelters and other inside locations. Eighteen per cent occurred outside, including vehicles, sidewalks, streets and parks.

That should puncture the lazy idea that this crisis is only what voters see on downtown sidewalks. People are dying behind doors, inside housing systems, in shelters, in SROs and in private homes. If provincial policy cannot reach people where they are actually dying, then the government’s response is failing at the most basic test.

The drug supply remains lethal. In expedited testing this year, fluorofentanyl was detected in 67 per cent of decedents tested, followed by cocaine and fentanyl at 55 per cent each, methamphetamine at 52 per cent, desalkylgidazepam at 24 per cent, bromazolam at 23 per cent and hydromorphone at 5 per cent. Smoking continued to be the most common mode of consumption at 71 per cent.

The Coroners Service cautions that the data is preliminary and can change as toxicology results and investigations are completed. That caveat matters. So does another one: these deaths should not be used to mock people who use drugs, grieving families, outreach workers or communities carrying trauma.

The point is accountability. Eby did not create addiction, fentanyl, poverty or trauma. But his government owns the results of its response. In May, even the “better” number was 109 dead. That is not victory. It is an indictment of a crisis still far from under control.