Who Wants to Save a Junkie?

Illustration: Kevin Mercer

Oregon has the highest rate of opiate abuse among people under 25 than anywhere else in the country. The epidemic is a crisis in our communities and affects people across all demographics.

Every three days someone as young as 13 years of age in the state of Oregon has died from a heroin overdose. The Kaiser's Portland clinic is now seeing 12 new teenage addicts every week; 75 percent of them use heroin.  This is a story that commonly starts with prescription drug use (often OxyContin) that when fueled by addiction, progresses to the cheaper street version of the opiate, heroin.  Even though Oregon appears to be a leader in the health industry with the “Cover Oregon” campaign, and despite being one of the first states to have a child health insurance program, our state is losing a domestic drug war. Shockingly, drugs are killing more youth than auto accidents in the U.S., and Oregon leads the nation in opiate abuse.  We must do something more to intervene than simply offer addiction services and drug education.

The article, Who wants to Save a Junkie?, addresses controversial harm reduction interventions being implemented in Oregon.  One intervention utilizes an overdose reversal drug called Narcan (naloxone hydrochloride injection), the other is a comprehensive effort to work with doctors who over-prescribe, as well as monitoring through the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP).  PDMP makes it difficult for an addict to score legal drugs (OxyContin, Vicodin) by working with pharmacies that keep track of prescription holders behavior and report possible drug abusers to the provider.

Number of unintentional drug overdose deaths involving opioid analgesics, cocaine, and heroin — United States, 1999–2007 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6101a3.htm

Opiate abuse is a country wide issue, as over 7 million people are addicted or physically dependent to some form of an opiate or prescription painkiller. Almost 20 years ago other states started to realize the life saving potential that Narcan could have. Recovery agencies and treatment centers in other states have been making Narcan available to the people that are closest to the drug users such as their friends, families and counselors. In other states it’s not uncommon for addicts themselves to have access to this life saving drug. Use of Narcan was controversial in the beginning, but it has saved upwards of 10,000 lives. It’s surprising and disheartening that Oregon, a state who is considered a forerunner in health services, is behind the times.