In the first eight months of 2020, more people died from overdoses than from COVID-19. Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, opioid deaths have been trending upward. And yet our government of British Columbia has continued to solely focus on COVID cases and COVID deaths, ignoring those suffering from substance-use disease. Their lives are/were important too. Elliot’s life mattered. In June 2019, Elliot’s family endured a coroner’s inquest over his death, in hopes of gaining insights into how his illness was allowed to progress without the proper supports and interventions from medical practitioners and government agencies. Many thoughtful recommendations were developed by the men and women of the jury. An yet, to date, nothing has been implemented from these recommendations.