The day I thought Donald Trump might really win was several months ago when I attended a gathering of people who had or had had family members in prison and were interested in humane drug policy. One of the leaders of the group, said he wasn’t buying Kamala. “A prosecutor is a prosecutor is a…
Is the decline in drug overdose deaths more related to the increased availability of naloxone, improved treatment for people who use drugs, or changes in the street drug supply, which while still quite toxic may be less so due to adulteration with other chemicals? A recent article in NPR, The pipeline of deadly fentanyl into…
U.S. overdose deaths plummet, saving thousands of lives, blared the headline from NPR yesterday. For the 12-month period April 2023 to April 2024, deaths fell nationally for the first time, declining by 10%. Here in Connecticut, we witnessed a decline beginning in November 2021. Deaths are down by 20% in our state when comparing the…
Drug overdose deaths are down 3.1% nationwide according to the latest figures from the CDC. 107,543 people died of drug overdoses in 2023 down from 111,029 in 2022. Here in Connecticut, drug overdose deaths have been decreasing for the last two years (down 14% in 2023 from the 2021 high). Preliminary data I have seen…
I was honored to be the keynote speaker at the recent symposium held at Eastern Connecticut College, Moving Forward: Community Dialogues on the Opioid Epidemic. Thanks to the organizers for putting on a great event. I was impressed at the almost universal recognition among the participants that the best way out of this crisis was…
Connecticut opioid-related deaths declined for the second year in a row, down 14% from their 2021 high of 1431 opioid deaths, according to the latest statistics from the Connecticut Office of the Medical Examiner (OCME). Opioid deaths represented 92% of all overdose deaths in Connecticut. Fentanyl was present in 92% of opioid deaths and 85% of…
One study showed naloxone stayed viable even after thirty years of storage in a less than ideal setting.
While the news often focuses on the dangers of fentanyl to youth, what I see on the street and what the data shows is that the group that is seeing the biggest increase in overdoses is the elderly.
In an age of accountability, slamming naloxone for the purpose of punishing a patient should be considered criminal assault.
Stigma causes people to hide their addiction, preventing them from seeking help. The stigma of being an “addict” implies that person is to blame for their actions. The words we use to describe someone not only affects how we view that person, but how that person comes to view themselves. When I started as a…
“I can’t wake him up!” The mother says as we come into the bedroom. Her voice and hands are shaking. “He was fine when I went out for groceries. Now he won’t respond.” She is crying. “Honey! Honey!” she says. Her son lies limply back on his bed, breathing only about four times a…
The woman watched the man’s head fall back and his mouth open, but he didn’t slip from his seat on the city bus. He began to snore, but it was irregular and somewhat gasping, then he was quiet. “I wish I could sleep like that,” the man sitting across from her said. She wasn’t the…
I am a member of Connecticut’s Overdose Fatality Review Panel. We meet on a regular basis to review selected cases of people who have died of overdose. We receive a file on each person that includes their age, gender and race, death location details and circumstances of their death, the autopsy and toxicology findings, their…
On March 22, 2023, the Connecticut Public Health Committee held a hearing on a series of bills it was debating. One of the bills was to create pilot overdose prevention sites in Connecticut. Two hundred and seventeen people signed up to speak that day on a variety of issues, but a good many of them…
The illicit drug supply in America today is as dangerous as it has ever been. Fentanyl, badly mixed into $4 bags, cross contaminated into cocaine or hidden in counterfeit pills, is poisoning our people, This week the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a Naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter (OTC) sales. This is a tremendous step toward…
“XYLAZINE, A DEADLY SKIN-ROTTING ZOMBIE DRUG, OFTEN MIXED W FENTANYL, IS ON THE DOORSTEP …ALREADY FUELING A HORRIFIC WAVE OF OVERDOSES.”” America has a history of hysteria over the drug war. From Reefer Madness to the insanity of telling people they could die from just touching fentanyl or that dealers are giving rainbow fentanyl to…
The state Office of the Medical Examiner yesterday released the final overdose deaths numbers for 2022, showing a 4.7% decrease in all overdose deaths and a 5.2% decrease in opioid deaths. This is better news than another increase but is still 5.7% above the 2020 overdose death number and 5.1% above the 2020 number for…
In this post, I will explain how opioids affect the brain, what steps you should take to reverse an overdose, how naloxone works and where it can be obtained, and what to do in the immediate aftermath of overdose. How Opioids Kill Opioids kill by shutting down our breathing or slowing it to a rate…
The third and deadliest wave of the opioid epidemic began in 2013 with the increasing adulteration of the heroin supply with illegally produced fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid manufactured in laboratories. Fentanyl was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1968. It is a pain killer, with a rapid onset and a…
I recently had a patient who still had his discharge papers on him from a recent trip to the ED following an overdose. The instructions were fairly simple. Please do not use fentanyl again. If you are looking for any sponsors or help we do recommend that you purse Narcotics Anonymous. He admitted that he…