Image via Wikimedia Commons
Skip Gates waited in the lobby of the Maine State House in late March, clutching a list of Republican legislators. Any day now, the House could vote on a bill that would distribute naloxone, the antidote to a heroin overdose, to Maine residents, and Skipâs son Will died five years ago after snorting heroin at college. So he came to help persuade.âMy suggestion is, if we donât pass this, itâs coming to a family near you, and sooner rather than later,â Skip, a retired math teacher, told VICE News. âIf itâs your son, if itâs your daughter, if itâs your grandchild who is in overdose, can you live with yourself forever, knowing that you did not support the thing that could have saved them?âOpioids, including heroin and oxycodone, operate like endorphins, the bodyâs painkiller and the happiness chemical. They block pain messages to the brain. A load of endorphins makes an aching marathon runner feel like Hermes. A load of heroin makes an aching Lou Reed âfeel just like Jesusâ son.âGlobal drug policy is still deadly and ineffective. Read more here.Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, meaning it reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. It sticks to opioid receptors in the brain better than heroin or oxycodone, kicking them off the receptors for a little while. But unlike opioids, naloxone does not depress the respiratory system, which is what causes overdose victims to stop breathing and die.Naloxone has been standard in emergency rooms since the 1970s. Distribution among drug users began underground, and the first official take-home program started in Chicago in 1996. The American Medical Association endorsed widespread access in 2012, a few years after overdoses surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of accidental death in America.The CDC classified prescription drug use as an âepidemicâ in 2011. States responded with strict prescription monitoring programs, going after âdoctor shoppers,â users shuttling between prescribers, and âpill mills,â doctors prescribing loads of painkillers. Where crackdowns were successful, the new âheroin crisisâ took hold. And another term caught on â the crisisâ âchanging faceâ â meaning the people dying were white and middle class.The alarm bells sounded for the home invasion. Drugs have to be the stranger in town. If we keep naloxone in the drawer, we admit that we know the guy, and expect that he might come knocking.Drug users who have detoxed are at high risk of overdose because their bodies are unused to their regular amount of drugs.âThereâs a lot of pride here,â says Zoe. âA lot of people come in for the first time and theyâre embarrassed, and say, 'you probably just think Iâm a scumbag.' And I say, 'no, I really donât. Iâd rather hang out with you than with a lot of people.'âGovernor Paul LePage would rather not hang out with drug users. His dad was a mean drunk. The Portland Press Herald reported that Gerard would light fires in the house in alcoholic rages and assault the 17 LePage children. They were poor, without hot running water or an indoor toilet, and often wanting for food.Paul left home at age eleven, after his father, Gerard, beat him and broke his nose, sending him to the hospital.âHe gave me a fifty-cent piece, and thatâs where my life began. I just walked,â LePage told DownEast Magazine.At eleven, Paul was homeless, and began working odd jobs, landing at a paper company for most of his career. Before becoming governor, he was the general manager of a chain of discount stores, Marsdenâs Surplus and Salvage.On April 9, LePage tells a press conference he still opposes open access to naloxone.âI just donât think itâs appropriate, with liability issues, to just open it up and say, be a drug addict and we will allow you, weâll have everybody on the street have a little pen so if you croak, weâll inject you,â he tells a press conference. âThatâs what they were asking. Basically, an open. Iâm saying no.âLePage has tried to cut millions from treatment while advocating for more drug arrests. In 2012, he capped funding for methadone and suboxone, the medical treatments for addiction, meaning people relying on them for two or more years were no longer covered. Public funds have been slashed since Shelby Briggs, Portlandâs overdose prevention coordinator, went to publicly funded rehab herself in the â90s.âThere are 13 or 14 public beds for women in Maine for rehab,â says Briggs. âNobody can afford it. Itâs thousands of dollars a week. And people generally donât get better in a week.âApproaching the April 14 vote, the Republicans, aligned with LePage, wonât budge on open distribution of naloxone. A week before it, House leadership cuts a deal, the Bangor Daily News reported. Families can obtain naloxone if they register the name of the drug user and other limitations, but the advocates still canât give it out. The governor refrained from vetoing the legislation.Briggs says that since the law passed, sheâs had two clients die. She was driving recently when she saw a client fallen out by the side of the road, a local kid. Without naloxone, she couldnât bring him back to consciousness. She rubbed his chest, holding him, and waited.Image via Wikimedia Commons by Intropin
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A naloxone bill passed in 2013, but Maineâs current governor, Paul LePage, vetoed it. That bill split along party lines, with the Democrats voting for it and the Republicans against. In January 2014, Democrats proposed a new bill, and this year Gates and company are going for a veto-proof majority. LePage says in early March that he plans to veto again, calling naloxone an âescape,â the Portland Press Herald reported.A heroin epidemic is plaguing New Jersey. Read more here.âItâs an excuse to stay addicted,â he tells reporters, and proposes a law enforcement-driven crackdown instead.Twenty-two other states already have naloxone laws. Maineâs overdose rate falls about in the middle nationally â 10.4 per 100,000. New Mexico is 23.8 and West Virginia is 28.9. Heroin deaths are on the rise in Maine, but in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, 140 of the 163 overdose deaths were related to pharmaceutical drugs. The prescription drug oxycodone was the leading factor, according to the state Department of Health.Will Gates was a junior at the University of Vermont when he died. He was studying molecular genetics and worked as a substitute teacher.âIt may be that the people who are super-bright, my son was incredibly bright, they may need to seek these heavy drugs out to stop all the flow of information, just to get a little respite,â Skip Gates told the legislators.“It’s an excuse to stay addicted."
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Zoe Odlin-Platz knows the guy. She comes from a fishing family, and they are her people. Drug users are also her people. In her office at Portlandâs India Street Clinic, a breast pump rests on a box of syringes.âWe all say it, these are your friends, these are your family,â says Odlin-Platz. âBut they really are. They really are just trying to get by just like we are. We can go home and drink three glasses of wine, and nobodyâs going to point the finger at us.âSheâs hesitant to talk about drug use among fishermen because sheâs worried people will misjudge them. Itâs a secret. The captains say, âNo junkies on my boat.â But Odlin-Platz says naloxone is especially important for fishermen, because they spend weeks on the water, beyond the reach of any ambulance.“We all say it, these are your friends, these are your family.”
âOne guy recently died on the boat out at sea,â she says. âThey stayed out there. I mean heâs dead, there isnât anything they could do, so they stayed fishing.âParents in Britain are doping their kids with methadone. Read more here.Odlin-Platz tries to get her clients to come in before their long trips, telling them, âPlease donât dump your needles over the edge of the boat just because the captainâs coming. Your tolerance is down, and I know youâre tough and I know you can handle so much, and Iâm not trying to tell you, you canât handle your shit, but just be careful.â“Please don’t dump your needles over the edge of the boat just because the captain’s coming."
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