Prevention of Heroin overdose in the Societies: Why Heroin Overdoses Are on the Rise

Prevention of Heroin overdose in the Societies is not just an option but a must do thing if we are to be healthy in the future

We all have a duty to keep our neighborhoods safe from all manner of dangers. There are a lot of dangers ranging from crime, health and social life. All these affect us in their own peculiar way and it is now time for all of us to take responsibilities in dealing with these problems. We cannot weight continue waiting for the authorities to do something. Even though the authorities have a role and a major one for that matter, when these problems strike we the societies are the first recipient of their effects. Let us consider substance abuse for example, while the government will feel the economic pain as a result of this problem, our families, sons and daughters, husbands and wives are the direct victims. It has therefore becomes very necessary that we pool together towards the prevention of heroin overdose in the societies. And when am talking about heroin I am not in any way excluding other drugs, they all impact on our lives negatively and radical solution must be sought for today. To introduce the magnitude of the problem, I am going to share with you a story about one of the drug abuse victim for better understanding why we must take action like yesterday.

A few years ago a young man or do I say boy in his early twenties was working at a sporting goods store in one of the neighborhood suburbs, he was prescribed Vicodin for shoulder pain. Latter on his doctor substituted his medication to morphine and then OxyContin unfortunately by the time this was done; he had developed a severe opiate addiction. He followed his prescription well but when his prescription expired, his cravings continued and he could not hold. As usual he bought for himself more pills from a street dealer for $50 each. He kept on purchasing every time he craves and when he had depleted his savings, the craving did not stop instead in become even worse. He negotiated with is supplier and the supplier offered him a dose of heroin for $10, before he knew he had been completely gotten hooked and addicted to the drugs.

The consequences of this begun to manifest themselves and the first thing was that he lost his job and spent several years in and out of treatment. Years later and desperate for money to support his unhealthy habit, he was arrested trying to steal a boat motor spear parts from his neighbor’s garage. This landed him in jail and the consequences continued he suffered opiate withdrawal for days: curled up in the fetal position due to bone and muscle pain, shaking from fever and chills, wasting his life and wetting and soiling himself with his pee and diarrhea and vomit. His fellow inmates did not take this kindly; they harassed him scathingly for the smell. After serving his jail term and one week into his freedom out of jail, he was not rehabilitated yet. So he borrowed his friend’s car to drive across town and of course his destination was to his old heroin dealer.

As a former client whose money the dealer had missed desperately, he was welcomed back with a dose of heroin at his cost at least to keep him in the list of clients. He injected the usual dose in his bedroom and the worse happen, this time round he came to the end of the road with his addiction and he stopped breathing. The next morning, his father found his lifeless body curled up on the floor. When I began I said that we must not weight for the authorities to come and do something. In this boy story you realize that at the end of it all it is his father who found him. In other words we are the people who are hard hit by this scourge. This story is one among many across the globe. It therefore brings us to the urgent need of ensuring that prevention of heroin overdose in the societies is well entrenched in our lifestyle.

Prevention of Heroin overdose in the Societies: The expert’s opinion

We spoke to the experts at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center under the able leadership of doctor Dalal Akoury MD and also the founder of the establishment, and she said that it is regrettable that the death toll of heroin addiction has been rising constantly at 40% per year since 2011, overtaking fatalities from HIV in. This is not something to celebrate about she says. We are going to share in our next article some five points you need to know about the impact of heroin overdose in our societies, but in the meantime, you can schedule for an appointment with doctor Akoury for more professional input even as she brings us up to speed with some of the things we can do to help:

Prevention of Heroin overdose in the Societies: What you can do

• If anyone you know has struggled with opiates, even years ago, get trained and equipped to administer naloxone yourself. Find an overdose prevention program near you.
• Invite Moms United to End the War on Drugs or Law Enforcement against Prohibition (LEAP) to speak to your civic club, student organization or other group about heroin and safe injection facilities.
• Learn more about how syringe exchange programs are reducing blood-borne disease transmission, how Naloxone Access and Good Samaritan Laws are saving the lives of those who overdose, and how the national Ban the Box campaign and Seattle’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program help drug users stay out of jail and move on with their lives.
• Tell your friends that heroin overdose deaths can be prevented with safe injection facilities. Start conversations about why it makes sense to provide a safe place to inject heroin.

Finally this is our problem, it affects us and we must individually and collectively take responsibilities for the prevention of heroin overdose in the societies. You can talk to doctor Dalal Akoury for more clarification and treatment recovery programs they offer at AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center today and your life and that of your whole society will be transformed thereafter.

Prevention of Heroin overdose in the Societies: Why Heroin Overdoses Are on the Rise