The mayor of Kamloops has brought his concerns of overdose deaths in the city to the province’s Health Minister.

Ken Christian sat down with Adrian Dix on Friday and during his discussion he brought up the record 48 illicit drug overdose deaths in Kamloops last year.

“My suggestion to the Minister is that we change our paradigm in how we look at opioids, and we need to look at hydromorphone dispensing.”

Hydromorphone is a pharmaceutical-grade opioid, and the idea of supplying it in vending machines to drug users had been widely-discussed in B.C. in the past two months.

“He had some money allocated in the budget that was released a couple weeks ago for the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Judy Darcy, to allocate. And he took my message back to her.”

Christian adds the personal years of life lost from the 48 overdose deaths is “outrageous,” saying those deaths were most commonly men between the ages of 24 and 40.