There is a cartoon hero named Narcania created by the same guy who wrote Lil’Dope Fiend Overdose Prevention Guide. In the mini comix, Narcania rescues people who have overdosed and gives them new life. As one character who has been resuscitated remarks, “I don’t know if there is anything worth living for, but at least now,…
In Connecticut, when EMS responds to an opioid overdose, after they have taken the patient to the hospital, accepted a refusal, or presumed a patient dead, they are required to contact the state poison control center and answer a series of questions about the overdose. The program, known as SWORD (Statewide Opioid Reporting Directive), that…
I heard today that Opiant, the company behind the 4 mg Narcan Intranasal spray, is at work on a new product to combat opioid overdose — Intranasal Nalmefene. Nalmefene Nasal Spray Nalmefene is an FDA approved medication to reverse opioid overdoses when used intravenously. It has yet to be approved in a nasal form suitable for…
In 1999, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant about a police shooting in the city. The newspaper reported that an unarmed 14-year old black boy had been shot in the back by a white police officer. They put the story on the front page under the headline Family, Police Want Answers: No Weapon…
Connecticut’s harm reduction workers are out on the street everyday trying to make the world safer for those caught in substance use. This is particularly important in this time of COVID-19. I am often questioned whether or not harm reduction – syringe services, community naloxone, overdose prevention sites, drop-in centers– are not just enabling users….
There is a picture in the Hartford Courant of Mark Jenkins talking with police officers looking as forlorn as I have ever seen him. They stand next to yellow tape sectioning off an area of woods just off Park Terrace where down a small ravine a man has been found dead. The paper describes the crime scene…
A federal judge ruled yesterday that a nonprofit group in Philadelphia’s effort to open a safe injection site where people can use drugs under medical supervision does not violate the federal crackhouse statutes prohibiting the operation of a space “for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing or using controlled substances.” U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh wrote: “The ultimate…
We are called for an unconscious and find the man out cold on his feet near Pope Park. He is a tall man in his early thirties with a ghost white complexion, standing there on the side of the road, his head nodded forward, arms hanging down swaying. Another drug user on the nod in…
I attend the Department of Public Health’s 2019 Connecticut Opioid & Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Conference on May 2. The featured speaker is Austin Eubanks, a survivor of the Columbine shooting. He and his best friend were golfing and fishing buddies. He shows us pictures of the two of them smiling, no idea what fates…
I’m on scene of an overdose. A fifty year old man in an unkempt apartment went unresponsive after sniffing two bags of heroin. His neighbor found him, giving him 4 mgs of Naloxone IN, and then called us. The man is alert and oriented by our arrival and does not wish to go to the…
The official death numbers for 2018 are out from the Connecticut Medical Examiner’s office. Connecticut Accidental Drug Intoxication Deaths 1017 people died in Connecticut of accidental overdoses, down 21 from 2017. This is the first decline (albeit minor) after six years of escalation. 746 people died in Connecticut due to the presence of Fentanyl, up…
I wrote a number of months ago about fentanyl induced chest wall rigidity in opioid overdoses. Chest Wall Rigidity Fentanyl induced chest wall rigidity is rare in the hospital setting, but it should not be surprising to find it is a factor in overdose outside the hospital given that the amounts of fentanyl being injected…
I first picked Veronica up on Hungerford Street one afternoon two years ago. We had been called for an unresponsive, but instead, we found a small woman with a club foot staggering along the street. She was half on the nod and covered with leaves. I asked her if she was okay, as we walked…
When they can’t get a hold of their local dealer, the two young men come in to Hartford from the suburbs to buy cocaine. Bart boasted to a younger friend Milton that he could get any drug he wanted on Park Street. “Well, let’s do it,” Milton said. It is true that Bart knows where…
We’re sent to the courthouse where a marshal takes us back to a holding cell. A thin, bearded man with cuffs around his wrists and his legs chained is bent over in the bare cell, grimacing. “Guess he got nervous about seeing the judge,” the marshal says to us, “Developed himself some back pain.” “I’ve…
He is walking down a side street off Park when he freezes in place. He sees the slow moving black Toyota blink its lights, then he sees the station wagon. Before he can take a step to flee, he sees the barrel come out of the back window. He feels the impact against his shin…
I see Maria outside the Spanish market, squatting against the building. She is a tiny woman in her fifties who was introduced to heroin thirty years ago when she was living in New York. The father of her son used it occasionally and when he used, she was obligated to sniff some as well. It…
A walk in the park to stretch the legs while on post. The medic walks past a row of port o-potties from a weekend event. One port-o-potty is not fully closed. A sneaker blocks the door door. On second glance the sneaker is attached to a foot. Open the door and an unresponsive man tumbles…
Misinformation and inconsistent recommendations regarding fentanyl have resulted in confusion in the first responder community. – Fentanyl Safety Recommendations for First Responders (Revised) from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It seems every week responders are getting exposed to Fentanyl, being rushed to the hospital, with many getting Narcan, all often without exhibiting any symptoms or…
Kelly is as dispirited as I have seen her. “My veins are shot,” she says. “I can’t even get high.” IV users use 1 cc syringes which have a very small needle they only need to slip inside the vein. When they pull back and get blood they know they are in. They push the…