{"id":140229,"date":"2018-08-03T08:13:16","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T12:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=140229"},"modified":"2018-10-05T10:25:49","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T14:25:49","slug":"op-ed-see-heroin-let-people-shoot-safely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/08\/op-ed-see-heroin-let-people-shoot-safely\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-ed: I See What Heroin Does. Let People Shoot Up Safely"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I am a paramedic in Hartford. I respond to overdoses in alleyways, on park benches, in public restrooms, and in cars in parking lots or on the side of the road.<\/p>\n

Some patients are blue and barely breathing when we arrive. Others are in cardiac arrest with the needle still in their arm. We do our best to bring them back, breathing for them with our airway equipment and administering the opioid-reversal drug naloxone.<\/p>\n

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Sometimes a crowd gathers to watch. Other times we are alone behind an abandoned building or deep into the bushes of a park. If a witness calls us in time, we can revive the patient. Others we do CPR on all the way to the hospital. Some are too far gone.<\/p>\n

Because I have seen this firsthand, I now believe that Hartford should designate a safe house where heroin users can inject while monitored by a health professional for accidental overdose.<\/p>\n

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I used to think heroin users had a character flaw, but after years of listening to their stories, I agree now with what the science says: Addiction is a brain disease. — Peter Canning<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Young, old, male, female, white, black, Hispanic \u2013 the epidemic that has put Connecticut in the Top 10 in the nation in opioid death rates<\/a>\u00a0doesn\u2019t discriminate. Last year, 1,038 people<\/a> died of accidental overdose in Connecticut. Eighty<\/a> died in Hartford.<\/p>\n

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I am part of a pilot project <\/a>with the Connecticut Poison Control Center. We are tracking opioid overdoses in Hartford. We\u2019ve found that two-thirds of the overdoses that happened in May and June of this year occurred in public areas rather than in residences.<\/p>\n

Users flock to Hartford because heroin is cheap here and available. A 0.1 gram bag sells for about $4. Dealers sell bags stamped \u201cKilling Season,\u201d \u201cThe Reaper,\u201d \u201cDonald Trump.\u201d Others seemed targeted to younger users: \u201cHall Pass,\u201d \u201cKiss Me,\u201d \u201cSmurf.\u201d<\/p>\n

The powder is increasingly cut or replaced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin. In 2012, fentanyl accounted for 12 deaths in Connecticut. In 2017, it accounted for 677<\/a>.<\/p>\n