Nanaimo’s Substance Problem Isn’t Just on the Street

 

Nanaimo’s Hidden Substance Problem — Part One

Does Nanaimo Have a Substance-Use Problem Beyond the Street?

Street overdoses are the most visible evidence of Nanaimo’s substance crisis. Alcohol sales and hospital records suggest the problem reaches much further—into ordinary homes and neighbourhoods.

A friend of mine once took a job at a Nanaimo bottle-return warehouse.

After the first weekend, they were stunned.

They had no idea Nanaimo drank that much.

The endless stream of returned beer cans, wine bottles and liquor containers offered a glimpse of something most of us never see gathered in one place: the accumulated evidence of alcohol being consumed quietly throughout the community.

When Nanaimo’s substance problem makes the news, the focus is usually downtown. We see people overdosing on sidewalks, emergency vehicles responding to drug-poisoning calls and Community Safety Officers administering naloxone.

That crisis is real, tragic and impossible to ignore.

But is it the whole story—or does Nanaimo have a much broader drug and alcohol problem taking place behind the closed doors of ordinary homes?

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Alcohol Sales Tell a Different Story

In 2022, alcohol sold in the Greater Nanaimo health area amounted to 10.9 litres of pure alcohol for every resident aged 15 and older. The provincial figure was 8.9 litres.

Greater Nanaimo’s recorded alcohol sales per person were therefore approximately 22 per cent above the B.C. level.

The phrase “10.9 litres” can be misleading. It does not mean 10.9 litres of beer, wine or liquor. It means the amount of pure alcohol contained in all the different alcoholic beverages sold.

One litre of pure alcohol represents approximately 58.6 Canadian standard drinks. Nanaimo’s figure therefore equals approximately 639 standard drinks per person in one year.

That is the alcohol equivalent of approximately 27 cases of 24 regular-strength beer for every resident aged 15 and older.

That does not mean everyone drank 27 cases of beer. The alcohol may have been consumed as beer, wine, spirits, coolers or drinks served in restaurants and pubs.

More importantly, the calculation includes people who did not drink at all.

If a substantial share of the population consumed little or no alcohol, those who did drink accounted for more than the population-wide average of roughly 12 standard drinks per week.

Alcohol consumption is also not spread evenly. Some people may have an occasional glass of wine, while others consume considerably more.

The Hospital Numbers Add Weight

Sales figures alone do not prove that a community has a substance-use problem. People may purchase alcohol in Nanaimo while living elsewhere, and Nanaimo residents may buy it outside the area.

Hospital statistics provide another indication of harm.

The most recent comparable local hospital figures published in Island Health’s Greater Nanaimo profile are from 2019. They should not be presented as current conditions, but they remain difficult to dismiss.

Greater Nanaimo recorded an age-standardized rate of 481.4 alcohol-related hospital admissions per 100,000 people, compared with 352 across B.C.

That placed Greater Nanaimo approximately 37 per cent above the provincial rate.

Cannabis-related hospital admissions were 54.1 per 100,000 people, compared with 25 provincially—more than twice the B.C. rate.

These numbers do not prove that every admission involved addiction. Nor do they establish that liquor stores or legal cannabis shops caused the hospitalizations.

Storefronts Do Not Tell the Whole Story

The number of liquor stores or cannabis shops tells us primarily about convenience and availability.

Another store may simply divide an existing market among more retailers. People who want alcohol or cannabis will often travel across town to obtain it.

Total sales, frequency of use and resulting health consequences are much more meaningful than the number of storefronts.

Unfortunately, no comparable public figure appears to show how much legal cannabis is sold or consumed specifically in Greater Nanaimo. That leaves hospital admissions as one of the few locally available measures of cannabis-related harm.

Not Just a Downtown Problem

The street-level crisis understandably commands attention because it is visible. The rest of Nanaimo’s substance use is scattered among thousands of homes, apartments, restaurants, pubs and private gatherings.

It does not generate a police report simply because someone drinks heavily at home.

It may not generate a hospital record until health deteriorates.

It may not become a housing statistic until the rent can no longer be paid.

And it may never appear in a news photograph.

The available numbers do not justify declaring that everyone in Nanaimo has a drinking or drug problem.

They do justify asking why alcohol sales per person are substantially above the provincial level and why the available alcohol- and cannabis-related hospital-admission rates were also higher.

The people visibly struggling on Nanaimo’s streets represent the most urgent and tragic end of the substance crisis.

They may not represent its full extent.

The street crisis grabs the headlines. The bottles returning to the depot and the hospital admissions occurring behind closed doors may tell the deeper story.

This is Part One of Nanaimo’s Hidden Substance Problem. Part Two will examine how long a private substance problem can remain hidden—and how it eventually becomes an emergency, housing or street-level statistic.

Sources

Island Health: Greater Nanaimo Local Health Area Profile . Alcohol-sales figures are from 2022. Hospital-admission figures are from 2019.

University of Victoria: Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research—Alcohol Sales Methodology .