Preliminary data from the B.C. Coroners Service shows more than 1,800 people died from toxic drugs in 2025, a 21 per cent decrease from the previous year.
The latest data, released Thursday (Feb. 20), says 1,826 people fatally overdosed in 2025 from unregulated drugs in the province. It’s the first time since 2020 that deaths due to fatal overdoses totalled fewer than 2,000 people within a year.
The B.C. Coroners Service also released the overdose numbers for the final months of 2025: November and December. There were 136 and 141 deaths, respectively, accounting for about 4.5 deaths per day each month.
Deaths among those between the ages of 30 and 59 accounted for 69 per cent of fatal overdoses in B.C. in 2025. Seventy-seven per cent of those who died were male. Youth fatal overdoses have increased to 26 deaths in 2025 from 21 in 2024.
Forty-eight per cent of deaths reported happened indoors, while 20 per cent happened indoors.
By health authority, Fraser and Vancouver Coastal reported the highest number of unregulated drug deaths, with 533 and 484 deaths, respectively. The two health authorities made up 56 per cent of all deaths in 2025.
The B.C. Coroners Service says fentanyl and its analogues continue to be the most-common substance detected in expedited toxicological testing. Sixty-nine per cent of those who died who underwent expedited testing had fentanyl in their system when they died, followed by fluorofentanyl in 54 per cent, cocaine in 53 per cent and methamphetamine in 52 per cent.
Smoking was the most common mode of consumption at 65 per cent, followed by nasal insufflation at 11 per cent, injection at nine per cent and oral at four per cent.
Trades, transport and equipment operators, and sales and service continues to be the two most-common industries for fatal overdoses in B.C.