Month: September 2018

However, Allison Herens, who has served as Philadelphia’s harm-reduction coordinator for about one year, said she hoped the effort to teach people how to use the strips would extend the general conversation about harm reduction during the opioid crisis.

“Just like every other harm-reduction effort, it’s not going to save everyone’s life,” Herens said about the test strip initiative. “But it opens the door to conversations with people to help reinforce safer [drug-using] practices. It opens it up to a much bigger conversation that should be happening on a regular basis.”

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news/tino-fuentes-isn-t-telling-drug-users-to-quit-but/article_2a7b4478-c331-11e8-a4c5-bf896f567157.html

By Courtenay Harris Bond

“It’s not easy,” said Allison Herens, harm reduction coordinator at Philadelphia’s Public Health Department. She conducts regular trainings about naloxone and how to administer it, and recently led one for about two-dozen people at the South Philadelphia Library on Broad Street.

“There are lots of different kinds of emergencies that happen on the street in any moment and it can be hard to discern if it’s actually an emergency or not,” she told the group.

https://whyy.org/articles/philly-says-its-simple-narcan-saves-lives-knowing-when-to-use-it-can-be-more-complicated/

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/10/29/660640838/opioid-antidote-can-save-lives-but-deciding-when-to-use-it-can-be-challenging

By Nina Feldman

The overdoses were linked to drugs purchased mostly around McPherson Square and Kensington and Allegheny Avenues over Friday and Saturday. While test results are pending, officials believe a combination of heroin or fentanyl and the synthetic cannabinoid K2 were involved, according to an email alert from the Department of Health obtained by the Inquirer and Daily News.

http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/philadelphia-overdoses-heroin-fentanyl-k2-kensington-20180923.html

By Aubrey Whelan

While the opioid crisis is most acute by far in Kensington, overdose deaths in South Philly increased by 41 percent from 2016 to 2017. All told, 132 of the city’s 1,217 overdose deaths last year were in the community. Jefferson Methodist Hospital’s ER on South Broad Street had the city’s third-highest volume of overdose patients in the city in 2016.

http://www2.philly.com/philly/health/addiction/heroin-opioid-crisis-south-philadelphia-20180914.html

By Aubrey Whelan

Farley said the increases in heroin overdose cases were “reflective of how the entire problem has shifted.”

“It started out as a prescription problem, but people are switching to heroin because it’s cheaper,” he said. He said doctors need to continue reducing opioid prescriptions “to stop people from getting addicted in the first place.” But, he said, those reductions must be coupled with more accessible treatment, so that people already dependent on pills don’t turn to heroin if a doctor reduces their prescription.

http://www2.philly.com/philly/health/addiction/hospital-stays-for-heroin-overdoses-in-pa-spike-especially-among-hispanics-20180912.html

By Aubrey Whelan