Criminalization of simple drug possession has had 'devastating effect,' says AIDS Saskatoon director A Saskatoon police spokeswoman said city police generally lay drug possession charges as a result of an investigation into something else. Criminalization of possession of illicit drugs for personal use has had a "devastating effect," says the AIDS Saskatoon's executive director. Jason Mercredi said he fully supports a call by the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on the federal government to decriminalize simple possession of illicit drugs for personal use. The CACP made the call last week after issuing its findings in a report. [continues 746 words]
SEATTLE - On gritty streets where heroin, fentanyl and meth stride like Death Eaters, where for decades both drugs and the war on drugs have wrecked lives, the city of Seattle is pioneering a bold approach to narcotics that should be a model for America. Anyone caught here with a small amount of drugs - even heroin - isn't typically prosecuted. Instead, that person is steered toward social services to get help. This model is becoming the consensus preference among public health experts in the U.S. and abroad. Still, it shocks many Americans to see no criminal penalty for using drugs illegally, so it takes courage and vision to adopt this approach: a partial retreat in the war on drugs coupled with a stepped-up campaign against addiction. [continues 2455 words]
A new study shoots down the notion that medical marijuana laws can prevent opioid overdose deaths, challenging a favorite talking point of legal pot advocates. Researchers repeated an analysis that sparked excitement years ago. The previous work linked medical marijuana laws to slower than expected increases in state prescription opioid death rates from 1999 to 2010. The original authors speculated patients might be substituting marijuana for painkillers, but they warned against drawing conclusions. Still, states ravaged by painkiller overdose deaths began to rethink marijuana, leading several to legalize pot for medical use. [continues 409 words]
BALTIMORE - Heroin has ravaged this city since the early 1960s, fueling desperation and crime that remain endemic in many neighborhoods. But lately, despite heroin's long, deep history here, users say it has become nearly impossible to find. Heroin's presence is fading up and down the Eastern Seaboard, from New England mill towns to rural Appalachia, and in parts of the Midwest that were overwhelmed by it a few years back. It remains prevalent in many Western states, but even New York City, the nation's biggest distribution hub for the drug, has seen less of it this year. [continues 1518 words]
There is a new tool to help battle the opioid epidemic that works like a pregnancy test to detect fentanyl, the potent substance behind the escalating number of deaths roiling communities around the country. The test strip, originally designed for the medical profession to test urine, can also be used off-label by heroin and cocaine users who fear their drugs have been adulterated with the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The strips are dipped in water containing a minute amount of a drug and generally provide a result within a minute-with one line indicating positive for fentanyl, and two lines negative. [continues 650 words]
As bad as getting off opioids the first time was, nothing prepared Briana Kline for trying to come back from relapse. She was in deep, past the Percocets and other pills. This time it was heroin, even a close brush with fentanyl. But the medicine that so helped slay her cravings before didn't seem to be cutting it. "The Suboxone didn't make me feel the way it usually does," said Kline, 26, of Lancaster County. "I was struggling a lot with cravings. I'd go a couple of days, be OK. Then I'd go use again." [continues 1283 words]
TORONTO - An aging construction worker arrived quietly in the building's basement, took his seat alongside three other men and struck his lighter below a cooker of synthetic heroin. A woman, trained to intervene in case of an overdose, placed a mask over her face as his drug cooked and diluted beneath a jumping flame. He injected himself, grew still and then told of the loss of his wife who died alone in her room upstairs - an overdose that came just a few months before this social service nonprofit opened its doors for supervised injections. [continues 1757 words]
Northwest Ohio Syringe Services has begun distributing fentanyl test strips to active users of opioids and other drugs. The exchange, a program through the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, is part of a larger strategy of harm reduction to keep people with addiction issues healthy while using, and provide them with resources and help when they want to seek treatment. Fentanyl has become the scourge of anyone trying to fight Ohio's opioid epidemic: deadly in small quantities and appearing in an increasing number of fatal overdoses. [continues 661 words]
We have been here before -- a raging epidemic of addiction that destroys lives, families and communities. Who was on the front line in the 1990s, when the drug was crack and the addicts were mostly black? Drug czar William Bennett. His weapons were prosecution and prison. Today, when the drugs are opioids and the addicts are mostly white? U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a doctor, is out there, telling the country, "We need to see addiction as a chronic disease and not a moral failing." [continues 822 words]
"By the time I was 17, 18," Nelson Abbott said, "I graduated to heroin." He tried to stop many times, both by going cold-turkey and tapering off the drugs, but he hated the withdrawal pains and he wasn't really ready to quit. Therapy didn't work out, either. But then his best friend overdosed and died. When Abbott's parents checked him into the Caron Treatment Center in Berks County, he didn't fight. [continues 1883 words]
In 2018 we find ourselves battling an opioid crisis that has been years in the making. Opioids are drugs that act on the nervous system to relieve pain and were originally derived from opium but now also include synthetic preparations. In the mid-1990s, their use by physicians was heavily promoted by the pharmaceutical industry, leading to greater prescribing for both acute and chronic pain. Patients using opioids can develop a dependency or addiction. There are two sources of opioids: those that are produced by the pharmaceutical industry and those that are illicitly produced. Recently, the illicit supply has become so contaminated with fentanyl (a very powerful opioid) or fentanyl-like substances that many people are at risk of an unintended acute and potentially fatal poisoning. [continues 541 words]
Curtis McGowan wrestled with his opioid addiction for years, but his suspected overdose while in prison raises serious questions On one of his many trips home from jail, Curtis McGowan beamed with pride and clutched a Dr. Seuss book. "Mom," said the six-foot, 300-pound foundry worker, handing Michele McPherson a copy of Green Eggs and Ham, "this is the first book I ever read." To mother and son, it was a moment filled with significance. He'd struggled with illiteracy his whole life, just like he'd struggled with drug use and mental-health problems. If he could learn to read, perhaps sobriety and serenity were not far off. [continues 1111 words]
In the 1960s, after some prodding from Ralph Nader, American government regulators began a major push for safer cars. Which made University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman wonder just how much safer these innovations made us. Specifically, he wondered about what economists call "moral hazard" - our tendency to take more risks when we're insulated from the costs of that risk-taking. In 1975, Peltzman published an article innocuously titled "The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation." His conclusion, however, was explosive: "Data imply some saving of auto occupants' lives at the expense of more pedestrian deaths and more nonfatal accidents." Less fearful of accidents, drivers were piloting their vehicles more recklessly, substantially reducing the life-saving benefits of the regulation. Economist Gordon Tullock suggested that if regulators really wanted people to drive more safely, they'd require automakers to mount a spike in the middle of each steering wheel, pointed toward the driver's breast. [continues 695 words]
Deadly fentanyl is tightening its grip on London's jail, with reports of several female inmates overdosing early this week, one needing five doses of naloxone spray to be revived. Twice in the last week, large amounts were found on women trying to smuggle the druginto the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), sources say. The province confirmed Wednesday four female inmates were found in medical distress Monday night. "Staff acted quickly in attending to the inmates and calling 911. Paramedics arrived and transported three inmates to the hospital, while the other inmate was attended to by staff at the facility," said Andrew Morrison, spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services. [continues 354 words]
Two people using fentanyl at London's temporary overdose prevention site on the weekend were resuscitated by a nurse after they overdosed, Middlesex-London's medical officer of health says. "These people were inexperienced, and fentanyl is a drug where it's easy to miscalculate how much you are taking. If this had happened in a back alley or stairwell somewhere, it could have easily resulted in death," Dr. Chris Mackie said Sunday. The drug users were resuscitated Saturday using oxygen, he said. [continues 492 words]
The life-saving drug may actually increase opioid abuse. Here's why My friendly local pharmacy has started selling naloxone kits to the general public. They think everyone should have one. The idea is that you never know when you're going to have someone overdose in your home. As the opioid crisis spreads like a curse across North America, naloxone - a lifesaving drug that neutralizes the effects of an opioid overdose - is not confined to first responders anymore. Schools in Toronto are stocking up in it. Librarians across the United States have been trained to administer it to overdosing visitors. Everywhere, the message is: make sure you have some on hand, just in case. [continues 667 words]
More supervised injection sites planned as opioid-overdose numbers skyrocket The construction trailer that houses the illegal, volunteer-run overdose prevention site in Toronto's Moss Park is about to open for another evening, as a dozen drug users, some clearly anxious for their fix, cluster around its muddy entrance in the cold. Activist and harm-reduction worker Zoe Dodd, named one of Toronto Life magazine's most influential people last year, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and R&B star the Weeknd, unloads an extra box of anti-overdose naloxone kits from her beat-up sedan. [continues 934 words]
City's fatality rate is now nearly double Ontario average, fuelling more concern Opioid-related deaths in Hamilton have soared more than 80 per cent in one year. From January to October, 75 Hamilton residents died from an opioid overdose in 2017 compared to 41 during the same period the year before. "Opioids are continuing to have a devastating impact on individuals, families, and the community," Hamilton's medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said in a statement Friday. "The sustained trend of rising opioid related deaths, which are preventable, in Hamilton is very concerning." [continues 437 words]
Prescott - The town's fire department has joined the growing number of volunteer fire companies in Leeds and Grenville that refuse to carry naloxone to counter opioid overdoses. Fire Chief Barry Moorhouse said his department based its decision partly on the fact naloxone-carrying paramedics are based in Johnstown, only eight minutes away as the ambulance flies. Usually, the EMS can get to a medical call in Prescott before his volunteer department, Moorhouse said. As well, Moorhouse said he fears the slippery slope of having his trucks carrying drugs to medical calls. The department is far more likely to encounter diabetic patients or people felled by allergic reactions than people affected by opioid overdoses. Should firefighters be required to carry EPIPENS and insulin, too? he wondered. [continues 415 words]
WATERLOO REGION - Waterloo Region plans to look further into pursuing three supervised injection sites, following a study that found a need and support in the community for the service to combat fatal opioid overdoses. Sites are proposed for the central cores of Kitchener and Galt, and a third spot to be determined that could be a mobile unit. "In Waterloo Region, we know that overdose is on the rise," said Grace Bermingham, regional manager of information, planning and harm reduction. Bermingham presented findings from the first phase of a feasibility study on supervised injection sites to a regional committee on Tuesday. The second phase involves identifying potential locations and further consultations with people who live, work or go to school near a proposed site. [continues 654 words]
How do we get out of this box? It may be time to follow Portugal in legalizing drugs British Columbia has a $250,000-a-day drug habit that is spiralling out of control - and it's not supported by the Downtown Eastside street bazaar. Rather, it's the opioid substitution program. The province now spends more than $90 million a year on "treatment" and health services for participants of the drug-maintenance program - that's more than it provides for legal aid. [continues 666 words]
The significant spike in illicit drug overdoses in Lethbridge has not reached Medicine Hat - yet. There is no way to predict that it will or when, said Insp. Tim McGough, Medicine Hat Police Service. Lethbridge recently experienced its largest spike in overdoses - 16 cases - ever recorded in a 24-hour period. There were 42 overdose calls to first responders in the week after Feb. 19. "We've had no specific overdose spike (in Medicine Hat) but we are always concerned with illicit usage." said McGough. [continues 349 words]
Nearly three weeks in, London's temporary overdose-prevention site - the first of its kind in the province - has gone from four drug users a day to 44, and front-line workers are beaming. The stripped-down supervised consumption facility opened Feb. 12, a quick, co-ordinated response to the growing number of opioid overdoses among London drug users. As of Tuesday, staff were seeing as many as 44 clients a day. "Clients are having trouble believing it. It's too good to be true," said Sonja Burke, needle exchange director at the Regional HIV/AIDS Connection. [continues 325 words]
Iam increasingly concerned with the inadequacy of our approach to the opioid crisis, both as a society and in the field of public health. There is no question that when people are dying in large numbers, we have to respond, and that has been happening. Safe injection sites, the distribution of naloxone kits and similar efforts are important. But this response is sadly inadequate. It repeats the "upstream" story that I told in the first column I wrote, in December 2014, one that is fundamental to the public health approach. In essence, villagers living on the banks of a river are so busy rescuing drowning people that nobody has time to go upstream to learn how they are ending up in the river and stop them being pushed in. [continues 602 words]
St. Catharines council is unanimously supporting the creation of a temporary supervised injection site in the city to help deal with the opioid crisis. "It is pure harm reduction. It is stopping people from dying," said Sandi Tantardini of Niagara Area Moms Ending Stigma, speaking in support of the site at Monday night's council meeting. Tantardini and Jennifer Johnston founded the group of moms, families and friends of people who have been lost to or are struggling with addiction. "When we're talking about the effects of the opioid crisis, our group and its representatives and our families, we're the faces of it," said Johnston, whose son Jonathan, a chef who trained at Niagara College, died of a fentanyl overdose in Toronto. [continues 328 words]
Emergency services responded to 16 cases on Friday and 42 since Feb. 19 Lethbridge had the single biggest spike of overdoses in a 24-hour period during the ongoing opioid crisis this past weekend, with 16 cases being responded to by local emergency services personnel on Friday alone. "What we have seen over this past weekend is a dramatic increase in the number of overdoses that our staff at Lethbridge Fire and EMS have responded to," said deputy chief of support services Dana Terry, at a hastily arranged press conference Monday morning. "Specifically with overdoses where Narcan was administered." [continues 392 words]
As a national opioid crisis wages on, Toronto police have decided to equip their downtown frontline officers with the opioid antidote naloxone. "This is about life and death, and that's what we signed up to do," Chief Mark Saunders told the Toronto Police Services Board at their meeting Thursday. Chief Saunders was tasked last year with submitting a report to the board on how the service might go about deploying the antidote, which can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. [continues 571 words]
Protesters carrying signs saying "Injustice is fatal!" laid dozens of white carnations next to a coffin on the steps of Montreal City Hall Tuesday, each representing a life lost to a drugoverdose. A coalition of community groups, crisis workers, activists and drug users held a demonstration demanding the government repeal drug laws that marginalize drug users. They also held a moment of silence - joining several vigils held simultaneously across Canada. The opioid crisis claimed nearly 3,000 lives in 2016, and the estimated death toll last year is pegged at 4,000 people. [continues 426 words]
Harm reduction is more than a job for Karen Kittilsen Levine. Reducing the numbers of people dying from opioid addiction and blood-borne disease is something she's determined to do. "We began doing outreach in Pictou County on November 1 and have more than 40 clients, and we're beginning outreach in Amherst within a few days," said Kittilsen Levine, who is the harm reduction coordinator for the Northern Healthy Connections Society. The organization collects used needles and distributes clean ones. It also provides condoms and information on blood-borne diseases. [continues 226 words]
Every morning, Kevin Thompson takes a short stroll from his apartment to the Crosstown Clinic, where he signs in, gets his prescription medicine, then sits in a small room and injects it before heading off to work. He follows this routine up to three times a day and has done so virtually every day for more than a dozen years. The medicine is diacetylmorphine, the medical term for prescription heroin. "It saved my life. No question, it saved my life," Mr. Thompson, 47, says emphatically. [continues 683 words]
With toxic street drugs such as fentanyl killing four British Columbians a day, much of the response has focused on overdose treatments with naloxone, and supervised injection sites. Yet public-health staff have concluded that emergency interventions such as these will not stop the epidemic. If the supply of these drugs cannot be halted - and no war on drugs has ever been won - the only option is to prevent the downward slide that leads to street-drug addiction. Many of the victims are middle-age men and women who have fought a lifelong struggle against such challenges as alcoholism, mental illness, the lasting effects of childhood abuse and more. [continues 513 words]
Rally in response to the opioid crisis hears tales of loss and 'burnt out' workers Kim Pare said his family did everything they could to help their bright and beautiful daughter, but in the end she couldn't fight the illness of addiction. It's been almost four years since Kaitlyn died, at 24, from a prescription opioid overdose and from her father's perspective nothing has really changed. "We are losing a generation of people who could be valuable members of our society. We have to help them,' Pare said, speaking to about 30 people at a rally at King and York Sts. Tuesday's event was part of a National Day of Action in response to the opioid and contaminated drug crisis. [continues 607 words]
Watchdog stands firm on requirement it be notified in cases involving the drug Ontario's police watchdog is pushing back at chiefs for suggesting their officers might hesitate to provide the life-saving drug naloxone out of fear that it could prompt an investigation by the civilian agency. In a strongly worded letter Thursday, the director of the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said the agency would not back down on its expectation that it be notified in cases where a civilian is injured or dies after an officer administers naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. [continues 793 words]
Thank you, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, for giving me cover so I don't wind up being painted as the "worst person in the world," the label Keith Olbermann used on his TV show to hang on people he didn't like. I have been silent as the opioid epidemic raged because I had no clear-cut solution. The debate currently swirls around the idea of city-approved "safe injection sites," more formally known as CUES -- comprehensive user engagement sites. [continues 545 words]
Fentanyl. The drug is one that most people never even heard of until a few years ago. Now it strikes fear into the hearts of public health officials, youth workers, parents and others. A few grains of fentanyl, often mixed with another recreational drug without the user's knowledge, can cause death within minutes. It has caused thousands of overdose deaths in Canada and tens of thousands in the U.S., and those numbers are rising rapidly. How have we dealt with this crisis? The primary strategy has been to supply naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of fentanyl, as widely as possible to police officers, health care providers and others who are likely to encounter people who have overdosed. The use of naloxone is a "harm reduction strategy", intended to reduce the negative consequences of using fentanyl, and it has saved many lives. But it is not enough. Overdose deaths from fentanyl continue to increase even after widespread distribution of naloxone kits. We desperately need another strategy. But what kind of strategy would work? [continues 652 words]
Municipal governments across Leeds and Grenville have been grappling with the question of whether or not their volunteer firefighters should carry naloxone kits to treat patients who overdose on opioids. And they have been coming up with different answers. In the Township of Leeds and the Thousand Islands, for example, the council has voted to supply the lifesaving antidote to its firefighters and have them trained in its use. Likewise in the Town of Gananoque where both its firefighters and police officers have access to the kits and know how to use them. Mayor Erika Demchuk said her town's police and fire departments have carried the kits for months, both for their own protection and that of the public. [continues 658 words]
Drug treatment can't help dead people. That's why San Francisco is scheduled to open two safe injection sites later this year, where drug users will be allowed to shoot up under medical supervision. If an addict overdoses, trained staff will be available to revive them with an overdose antidote like naloxone, commonly known as Narcan. Staffers can also recommend treatment options to those interested. In an effort to stem fatal overdoses, safe injection sites are now under discussion in such cities as Philadelphia, Seattle, and Ithaca, N.Y. [continues 494 words]
There was some good news out of the report the B.C. Coroners Service released Jan. 31, that overdose deaths declined in the last quarter of 2017 compared to 2016. There were 99 deaths last December, compared to 164 the previous year. But that's about all the good news. Overall, 2017 was the deadliest year for overdose deaths B.C. has ever seen, with 1,422 deaths compared to 914 in 2016. In the majority of those deaths - 81 per cent - the synthetic opioid fentanyl played a part. That's an increase over 2016 again, when the figure was estimated at 67 per cent. That many deaths makes you question just how much fentanyl is in circulation, and how many other overdoses there were that didn't result in death, thanks to naloxone or other lifesaving measures. [continues 199 words]
Provincial plan aims to fill gap for communities waiting on permanent services for opioid crisis A temporary supervised drug use site will open its doors in London, Ont., Monday - the first of what is expected to be many under a new provincial emergency-response program that will fill the gap for communities waiting on permanent sites. Thousands of people are dying from overdoses every year across Canada. In Ontario alone, there were 336 opioid-related deaths between May and July last year, up 68 per cent from that same period the year before. Fentanyl, a drug so potent that mere grains of it can be lethal, was a factor in 67 per cent of those deaths - up from 41 per cent in 2016, and 19 per cent in 2015. [continues 648 words]
Councillors might still squabble over budgets, but no one questions the fact that the opioid crisis must be solved Mark Tyndall stood before Vancouver City Council at a recent meeting to proselytize for his latest harm-reduction scheme: vending machines to dispense opioids to drug users. "I really wish we could get 50 of these things going in the next year," said Dr. Tyndall, executive medical health director of the BC Centre for Disease Control. "We could supply clean drugs to thousands of people and our overdose numbers would plummet." He plans to start with a pilot project in Vancouver. [continues 634 words]
Ontario's first legal drugoverdose prevention site opens Monday in London. The site, temporary while the search continues for a permanent site, will be located at 186 King St. The site is part of the health unit's response to the opioid crisis sweeping Canada, whose toll ran to nearly 1,500 people in the first half of last year alone. The London site, embebbed within the Regional HIV/AIDS Connection program location, has been granted an exemption from Canada's criminal drug laws. [continues 91 words]
The Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit has expanded its harm-reduction strategy related to intravenous drug users. With opioid addiction an increasing problem in the local area and elsewhere, the health unit has set up three 24-hour disposal sites where users can dispose of old needles. Needle disposal is a concern for health officials because intravenous drug abuse is highly correlated with blood-borne illnesses, such as HIV and hepatitis. Used needles that aren't properly disposed pose a hazard to young people who may pick them up or people passing by who are inadvertently stabbed. [continues 235 words]
The fire department in ElizabethtownKitley wants to opt out of carrying naloxone kits in its fire trucks. In a report to council set to be discussed on Monday, the township's fire department says it unanimously decided it does not want to participate in the Ontario Naloxone Program at this time. The provincial fire marshal and chief of emergency management informed the township in December they will be expanding the naloxone program to include funding for two naloxone kits for each fire truck used in their role as first responders. [continues 553 words]
The province's opioid crisis is truly frightening. The death totals for 2017, released last week, are record-shattering - with 1,422 dead in B.C., including 200 in the Interior Health region and 19 in the Kootenay Boundary region. About four out of five who died were male and almost nine out of 10 deaths occurred indoors. The powerful opioid fentanyl was detected in 81 per cent of last year's deaths compared to about 67 per cent in 2016. [continues 626 words]
Public health is urging anyone who uses drugs to get a free naloxone kit. The call comes after Owen Sound police announced Jan. 26 that the highly potent opioid carfentanil was confirmed in a pair of investigations in the city. "All drugs are dangerous and we don't know oftentimes what is in other drugs. So you could be getting what you think is one drug when, in fact, there could be something else in it," public health nurse Lindsay Cook said in an interview. [continues 350 words]
Re: Advocates pushing for safe injection site, by Brian Cross, Jan. 26. In this excellent article it mentions several people who advocate for a safe injection site and express the urgent need for an overdose prevention site. The article makes the following points: the need for the presence of medical professionals to supervise injections by drug users; the need to provide new needles in order to prevent infections; the importance of administering naloxone in case of an overdose; and the need to provide counselling so that more drug users will become former addicts, as is the case of Matt Cascadden. [continues 201 words]
B.C. has announced $20 million over three years for First Nations communities struggling with the drug-overdose crisis that's disproportionately affecting Indigenous communities. The funding will be administered by the First Nations Health Authority, which delivers services in partnership with First Nations communities. It is part of $322 million announced in last September's budget update. About 1,400 people died of illicit drug overdoses in the province last year, according to the B.C. Coroners Service. Indigenous people are five times more likely to experience an overdose than the general population and die at a rate three times greater, said Judy Darcy, minister of mental health and addictions. [continues 426 words]
Overdose-prevention plan would equip 112 high schools and train some staff Toronto District School Board high schools will soon be provided with a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses. On Wednesday evening, the board voted to move forward with equipping every secondary school with a naloxone kit, as part of TDSB's overdose-prevention plan implemented in November 2017. TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird said one kit will be provided to each of the board's 112 high schools and alternative schools. [continues 352 words]
Some fear increased police presence will drive drug users to avoid health services While Vancouver police proclaim victory in a recent crackdown on crime in the Downtown Eastside, some locals fear the boost in beat cops is pushing people who use drugs into harm's way. Last week, Vancouver police increased foot patrols to address "street disorder" and prevent violence. Police said the sweeps came in response to a surge in complaints from residents, business owners and visitors. As well, people with mobility issues and the elderly have complained about blocked sidewalks and doorways. [continues 621 words]
453 people were revived 'from the brink of death' in 2017, Hamilton city officials hear More than one-quarter of naloxone kits distributed through Hamilton Public Health last year were used to revive someone from an overdose. Of the 1,700 opioid antidote kits handed out in 2017, 453 were reportedly used to revive a person. "Four-hundred and fifty-three people revived from the brink of death. It's hard to imagine that's anything but a success," said Michael Parkinson, who works with the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council and the Municipal Drug Strategy Coordinators Network of Ontario. [continues 633 words]
