Being prepared is an antidote to high opioid overdose rate
Public health professionals and addiction services agencies continue to distribute Narcan to the public as Niagara County experiences high rates of opioid overdoses.
Volunteers receiving Narcan training Wednesday for the Niagara County Medical Reserve Corps, a health department program, learned that Niagara County's 2020 overdose rate of 39.1 per 100,000 surpassed that of Manhattan at 22 per 100,000. Trainer Bryan Tadlock of the Niagara County Department of Health said males ages 30-35 are the group at highest risk.
According to the New York Office of Addiction Services, Niagara County's opioid overdose death rate outpaced the rest of the state from 2017 to 2020. At a rate of 30.7 per 100,000 in 2020, Niagara County exceeded Erie County's 2020 rate of 24.6.
Making Narcan available is an important strategy, said Emily Buteyn, program director of Save the Michaels Lockport Recovery Center, a non-profit that provides addiction services. She said she would like to see as many people trained and supplied with the overdose antidote as possible to save lives.
Doug Bisher, who celebrates his ninth year of recovery Thursday, is among the saved.
'A perfect stranger saved my life with Narcan,' Bisher said. 'I was knocked out in my front seat in the Tops parking lot in Lockport. I came to and I didn't know what was going on. It was shortly after that that I got clean.'
Now, as a peer support specialist for Addict to Addict in Lockport, Bisher distributes Narcan and educates people about its use and the opioid addiction problem. He recognizes that many people have heard that addicts can be unhappy when Narcan reverses their high.
'I know personally, I would rather you brought me back to get sick, than (let me) overdose,' he said. 'It was one of the things that made my recovery possible.'
At the county's Narcan training, overdose rescue kits were provided that included two nasal doses of Narcan. Tadlock discussed the symptoms of opioid overdose, and the steps an individual should take when administering Narcan. In responding to an overdose, Padlock said a person should always call 911 if they provide Narcan, since drug users may need more doses to fully withdraw. Tadlock said Narcan has no effect on a person who is
To make Narcan more widely available, Save the Michaels has installed 8-by-8-inch red boxes outdoors at businesses around Lockport containing free Narcan. Other free Narcan sources include a purple box located outside the Marathon gas station on Walnut Street and a vending machine outside Save the Michaels on Walnut Street, which also provides fentanyl and xylazine test strips.
Buteyn said data shows that narcotics overdoses in Lockport are similar to those in Niagara Falls.
'The statistics were pretty scary for Lockport,' she said. 'We don't have the population that Niagara Falls has.'
With the problem of overdoses so near, Buteyn recommends that everyone educate themselves about Narcan.
'Substance use is no longer something that we can pretend doesn't exist in our own family group, friend group, and among coworkers,' she said. 'If somebody is not willing to be part of the solution, it's only going to get worse.'
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