The opioid crisis is discussed often but very much overlooked or ignored in hopes that things will just get better on their own. British Columbia is at an all-time high when it comes to illicit drug toxicity deaths but not much is being done. There is a critical need to bring awareness to the issue so we can break the stigma around addiction and invest in resources to help those who are suffering. Digital humanities has proven to be an exceptional space for a discussion on this topic. By using a digital platform or tool, a person can dive deep into any given topic to produce an argument, change perspectives, and even simply educate others. The timeline and storymap below give visual examples of the rising death toll due to illicit drug toxicity. We need to come together within our communities to support one another and help each other in these tough times.
This timeline highlights how the opioid epidemic has continued to get worse and worse over the years. All of the numbers in the timeline are from the government’s website and the B.C. Coroners Illicit Drug Toxicity Report (2022). There have been very few extra measures put in place since the province declared a public health emergency in 2016 (BC Gov News, 2016). The rising death toll shown in the timeline below speaks for itself.
Timelines are a great tool to show how things grow, change, get worse, get better, and simply evolve over the years. A timeline is an easy-to-use digital humanities tool that can be worked into any project. With more time and effort put into this timeline, a person could use it not only as an educational tool but also to track data over a number of years. However, timelines can be used in other ways as well. Bartolomeo argues that timelines are not always linear, she says “we could use a line, a circle, a spiral, or any other shape, and they would still convey how one event follows another” and that is the key factor. One could have fun with using a timeline to convey information, there are many different ways this tool could be utilized and that’s what makes it a good digital humanities tool to know about.
So we know that the rate of death by drug overdose is increasing year after year, but what are we doing about it? The stigma and judgment around drug use is still very prevalent even in modern-day times. The lack of resources in many communities is a continuing issue that advocates are fighting to improve. With no support or help available, people who suffer from drug addiction are unable to get better. The storymap below shows how not only smaller rural communities are struggling but so are the larger cities in the province.
So, how is it that such a large city as Vancouver has such a high death rate? How is it that the Northern Captial of B.C. ranks 11th on the list? Why does the small community of Trail rank so low with a death rate of only 7.3 people per 100,000? The answer is simple, the small town with a treatment center and multiple resources that everyone in the community is able to access and use is doing really well compared to the larger cities with higher populations and limited resources. A storymap is a great educational tool because it is fairly easy to create and produces a great visual of the information given. In our week 8 readings, Chapter 2 – Mapping reading stated “mapping in the digital humanities might be defined as creating or contributing to a digital visualization of structured relationships between concepts or things”. With this tool, I was able to connect the location in the province that has high death rates due to illicit drug overdose.
With more time and effort put into this project, it could be an effective page to educate those who do not know about the current state of the opioid epidemic in our province. The tools presented in this project are great visuals to help people learn easier and better understand the information presented to them. The intent of this project is to simply highlight a key issue in our province and hopefully have people question the decision or lack thereof that our government is making. I cannot tell you what the solution to the problem is, but what I do know is that something needs to change, fast. It could be a change in policies on government levels and municipal levels, social policies, social supports, and maybe even laws perhaps. We need to come up with a way to support those suffering and not just allow them to die on our streets and in our communities.
Works Cited
BC Gov News (2022) “Provincial Health Officer Declares Public Health Emergency | BC Gov News”. News.Gov.Bc.Ca, 2022, https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016HLTH0026-000568. Accessed 2 Dec 2022.
British Columbia Coroners Service (2022) “Illicit Drug Toxicity Deaths in B.C.”, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/illicit-drug.pdf
“Chapter 2 – Mapping”. Carletonu.Pressbooks.Pub, 2018, https://carletonu.pressbooks.pub/digh5000/chapter/chapter-two/. Accessed 6 Dec 2022.
Sara Di Bartolomeo (2020) “Timelines Are Not Always Lines: An Evaluation Of Different Timeline Shapes”. Medium, 2020, https://medium.com/multiple-views-visualization-research-explained/timelines-are-not-always-lines-an-evaluation-of-different-timeline-shapes-2e5aba0851e4. Accessed 6 Dec 2022.
