The western Canadian province of British Columbia began a three-year pilot program to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy, or crack cocaine, as part of an effort to fight a drug overdose crisis. 

B.C. is at the epicenter of Canada's drug overdose and trafficking crisis that has killed more than 32,000 nationally since 2016. Preliminary data showed there were 2,272 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2022, the second largest annual number ever recorded, behind 2021, which had 34 more deaths. 

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