Does access to naloxone influence an opioid user’s decision to use? That is the crux of a recently published (on-line) economics paper, The Moral Hazard of Lifesaving Innovations: Naloxone Access, Opioid Abuse, and Crime, which argues that increasing access to Naloxone sanctions risky behavior, unintentionally increases opioid abuse, leads to greater crime, and may increase the […]

One of my EMS coworkers and a budding journalist Sean Freiman interviewed me recently about Hartford’s Opioid Crisis with a focus on the heroin bags. Click on the picture to view the interview.  

  Should unresponsive overdose victims receive rescue breaths or chest compressions from lay bystanders? If a person is apneic but not in cardiac arrest, failing to give rescue breaths may lead this person to fall into cardiac arrest. But, if the person is apneic and in cardiac arrest, failure to do quality chest compressions, will […]

Overdose on Babcock Street. In an alley behind a building. Fire is there before us. A familiar scene. As I approach I can see them hunched over the patient, the bag valve mask out. They have already given her four of narcan. I stand over them looking at the patient. I can’t see her face […]

Opioid deaths are generally classified as accidental overdoses. In 2017 Massachusetts began reporting opioid deaths as “All Intents” where they previously reported them as “Unintentional/Undetermined.” They point out that adding suicide deaths only marginally adds to the count. By their statistics only 2 percent of the total opioid deaths were confirmed as suicides. Massachusetts Opioid […]