Drug deaths too high in Downtown Eastside: study

Source: CTV News

VANCOUVER -- A report on illegal drug use in Vancouver says deaths were down in Vancouver and the rest of B.C. for 2006.

However, residents of the Downtown Eastside don't fare well in the report from the Canadian Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use. It says residents there have seven times the provincial rate of drug-induced deaths and a 33 per cent higher death rate than the rest of the province.

Vancouver's rate of newly diagnosed hepatitis C cases declined from 2006 and new cases of HIV were down from 2005 in connection to intravenous drug use. The report also says the weight of ecstasy seized by police in 2005 is over 40 times that seized in 2002.

The group says the study was done to provide policy makers and community leaders with better information to help develop harm reduction and prevention techniques to reduce drug use.