Even before the year is officially over, health officials are declaring 2018 to be a landmark in Philadelphia’s opioid crisis, marking the first time in at least five years that overdose deaths will have declined. More people sought treatment. More doses of Narcan, the lifesaving overdose reversal spray, were handed out in the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods.
In short, “all the key numbers are moving in the right direction,” Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said last week.
http://www.philly.com/health/opioid-crisis-addiction-philadelphia-overdose-death-toll–20181224.html
By Aubrey Whelan
The Collected Works of Jim Garrow 