2025 saw lowest annual deaths in Penticton from toxic drugs in 8 years
Published 5:00 pm Thursday, February 19, 2026
Penticton saw its lowest recorded deaths from toxic drugs in eight years in 2025.
The BC Coroners Service published its annual report on the ongoing crisis of deaths from unregulated drugs on Feb. 19.
For Penticton, the year saw the city record 16 deaths due to unregulated drugs.
The last time the city saw that number of deaths was in 2018, and is lower than any year since.
It’s a substantial drop from the previous year, which saw a total of 28 deaths in Penticton in 2024, and from the record high of 31 deaths in 2022.
Elsewhere in the Okanagan, Vernon also saw a substantial drop in deaths, going from 46 in 2024 to 27 in 2025.
In the greater Interior Health region, Kamloops saw a substantial drop from 95 deaths in 2024 to 58, and Cranbrook from 15 to nine.
Most other townships and local health areas saw numbers remain fairly similar.
The Central Okanagan saw 104 deaths in 2025, down slightly from the 109 in 2024. Summerland saw four deaths, up one from 2024’s figures, and the same as 2023’s count.
Keremeos and Princeton both recorded a single death apiece due to unregulated drugs in 2025, down from three deaths in Keremeos in 2024 and from two in Princeton in 2024.
Across the Interior’s local health areas, Penticton dropped out of the top five in per capita deaths in 2024, down to 14th in 2025.
The community of Lillooet remained the worst local health area per capita, with a second year in a row recording five deaths.
According to the BC Coroners Service, fentanyl remained a major factor in deaths, being detected in 69 per cent of fatal unregulated drug deaths.
Fluorofentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamines were all detected more than half the time, and two forms of benzodiazepines were detected around a third of the time.
The entire Interior Health region was issued a toxic drug warning just a week before the annual report was published.
It warned that multiple samples of drugs had been tested to contain carfentanil, a potent fentanyl analogue, and medetomidine, a veterinary sedative believed to be responsible for a provincewide increase in overdoses.
READ MORE: Interior Health-wide alert for medetomidine, carfentanil in drug samples
