Researchers and community activists are divided about the underlying cause of a nearly 80-percent decline in drug-related deaths in British Columbia over the past decade, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Dec. 9.

The 2008 illegal-drug related death rate in the province is projected to be one-third the 1998 level. Possible causes for the decline include fluctuations in the quality and supply of heroin, an increase in users seeking methadone treatment, and the effect that the city of Vancouver's safe-injection center, Insite, has had on the drug-using population.

"It's very, very hard to make attribution about what it all means," said Thomas Kerr of the urban-health research initiative at the B.C. Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. "It goes up and down a lot, and we really do not know why." Kerr suggested that neither law enforcement nor the impact of the Insite program could fully account for the dramatic decline.

Judy Graves, coordinator of Vancouver's tenant-assistance program, said that the education and counselling services provided by Insite are saving lives in the Vancouver area. Bud Osborne, a founder of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, contends that the community-advocacy group is also a contributor to the decline.

A report from the B.C. Coroners Service stated that the province has recorded 133 drug-related deaths so far this year, with Vancouver recording just 30 drug deaths.