Why Opioid Deaths Keep Climbing, Even With A Widely Available Drug To Prevent Overdoses

“Dr. Phillip Coffin compares naloxone — the drug used to reverse the effects of opioid overdoses — to seat belts.

Seat belts can prevent drivers and passengers from dying in a car crash, but seat belts can’t prevent the crashes themselves.

Naloxone can prevent people who overdose on opioid drugs from dying, but it can’t prevent overdoses in the first place. In fact, if you’ve survived an overdose, your chances of overdosing again in the next year are around 25%, says Coffin, director of substance use research at the San Francisco Department of Health.

And your chances of dying from a subsequent overdose are substantial, suggests a Massachusetts study presented Monday in Washington, D.C., at the American College of Emergency Physicians’ annual meeting.”

Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ritarubin/2017/10/30/why-do-opioid-overdose-deaths-keep-climbing-as-a-drug-to-prevent-them-becomes-more-widely-available/#29da81144036

Source: Forbes.com – October 30, 2017