Heroin Overdose Epidemic - what is your perspective?

[scjbash]

For each incident of use, what percentage of users OD? Does 151 ODs in 4 days mean there are 500, 10,000, or 150,000 users in the area? Does anybody have an estimate of the ratio of users:ODs beyond the pattern that the presence of fentanyl is raising the OD percentage by some amount?

Our local PD's analyst estimates 14% of our city's population is an addict. Going with that number for the sake of discussion would mean we have 7000 addicts. We had over 1300 overdoses last year, with a hundred or more of those being fatal. Not great odds for the addict, and that's just looking at one year. This year we'll have the same base of addicts but another 1500-2000 overdoses.

When he says addict I'm assuming he's meaning all drugs, although heroin is the bulk of that, and pretty much all of the overdoses. And some of those overdoses are from people who have overdosed multiple times so that skews the numbers. There was a woman on the news yesterday in some drug court success story who supposedly overdosed nine times. Whatever the exact rates are, it's clear from even looking at rough numbers that for addicts it's almost more of when will they overdose and not if.

[DitchDoc]

Here's my, very jaded, 2 cents: Heroin use never really goes away, its popularity ebbs and flows, its cyclic. The reason for the spike in ODs (besides the spike in users / abusers) is what the dealers are cutting it with. I've met some really old users (68 y/o female was the oldest). However, she was the exception that proves the rule. Sadly, for the most part this is a self-correcting problem. Haven't seen it personally but I hear PCP is making a come back too, whoever thought that would happen?

Disclaimer: This is MY very narrow, very biased opinion. I'm sure there are many more contributing factors, but I'm not a social scientist or statistician just an observer and sometimes the player of some minor role.

[SunTzu]

Does constantly saving people with the injectors cops carry count as enabling?

[Rex G]

Does constantly saving people with the injectors cops carry count as enabling?

I would say so.

FWIW, the "cops" around here do not carry this antidote. My employer, a big-city PD in the Gulf coastal South, does not provide us with this antidote, perhaps because opioids are not yet a major factor here, and perhaps because the cost would cause the bean-counters to choke. I am seeing increasing indications of opioid use, so perhaps things may change.

[voodoo_man]

Does constantly saving people with the injectors cops carry count as enabling?

We had an official fourth rounder last night.

Always a different officer, but same location.

At some point theya aren't gana make it on time.

[okie john]

Our local PD's analyst estimates 14% of our city's population is an addict.

Does that number include legal substances like alcohol, or just illegal ones?


Okie John

[SunTzu]

Thanks, Rex and Voodoo. The injectors were just introduced here in my area recently. According to local scanner traffic they get used repeatedly and a lot of times on the same people. I figure your job is stressful enough without adding that job requirement.

[Nephrology]

At some point theya aren't gana make it on time.

Or they'll push enough fentanyl into their arm to kill Dumbo that they'd need a narcan drip to survive, or they'll get acute bacterial endocarditis/HIV/Hep C/MRSA bacteremia and die in an ICU somewhere 2 weeks after you scoop him/her up, or they'll get stabbed for their dope, or...

[scjbash]

Does that number include legal substances like alcohol, or just illegal ones?


Okie John

He said addicted to drugs but I'm not certain what he was including. I don't think alcohol. The discussion was about opioid abuse but I don't know if that's all he meant. It's what almost all of the drug addicts are on though.

[voodoo_man]

Or they'll push enough fentanyl into their arm to kill Dumbo that they'd need a narcan drip to survive, or they'll get acute bacterial endocarditis/HIV/Hep C/MRSA bacteremia and die in an ICU somewhere 2 weeks after you scoop him/her up, or they'll get stabbed for their dope, or...

True story...

Responded to a guy who shoved a bag of the fentanyl tabs in his mouth and started chewing. One or two probably wouldn't have killed him, but a whole bag worth (I don't know how many but it was a lot) put him to sleep and turned off his ticker. I got there and started doing CPR since I heard the bus coming. They got there and after removing all the tabs started doing CPR. I left my car and got in the bus with them just in case the medic needed a break. We get to hospital and I watch five nurses take turns doing CPR on this dude. He didn't make it.

Some people just want to die.