A new project at University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine has demonstrated that one place medical schools can train students about saving lives from an opioid-related overdose is hospital emergency departments (EDs). A recent study found that EDs are particularly apt settings for overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND), a harm-reduction strategy aimed at both teaching patients how to recognize and respond to opioid-related overdose and distributing naloxone to laypeople for use outside of health care settings.

As recreational drugs like cocaine are increasingly cut with fentanyl, a movement has sprung up to prevent deaths in nightclubs. Marie is one of the many harm reduction workers helping distribute testing strips in leisure spaces. Fentanyl testing strips as well as the opioid-reversal drug naloxone (commonly known as Narcan) are becoming the sine qua non of the party scene, distributed everywhere cultural denizens hang out: nightclubs, art galleries, downtown streetwear stores, even housewarming parties in Brooklyn.

Louise Vincent figures her group, the North Carolina Survivors Union, saves at least 1,690 lives a year. The harm-reduction and syringe service program in Greensboro, N.C., distributes the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone to people who use drugs. Research suggests this approach is effective, since people who use drugs are most likely to witness an overdose and administer naloxone.

The Constellations session Staying Alive: Naloxone Action!, chaired by DDN, explored the vital – and often unpaid – work peers were doing to get naloxone into the hands of people who need it. Drug-related deaths were ‘needless and avoidable’, he stated, and the most important people he worked with were those with ‘lived and living experience of addiction’. Naloxone provided a ‘wonderful opportunity to keep people alive. It’s not the whole solution, but it’s part of the solution.’
(See page 12 of link for article)