A 2006 law made it legal in New York State for non-medical persons to administer Naloxone to another individual to prevent an opioid overdose from becoming fatal. Naloxone is a prescription medicine that reverses an overdose by blocking opioids in the brain.
The NYC DSA Opioid Overdose Prevention Program dispenses Naloxone (Narcan) to people and communities who experience high risk of overdose. We seek to work on the front lines of the overdose crisis and to educate both people who use drugs and the general public about the structural nature of addiction. Overdose reversal is an immediate emergency measure, but we recognize that the problem is structural and thus requires structural solutions.
The NYC DSA Opioid Overdose Prevention Program dispenses Naloxone (Narcan) to people and communities who experience high risk of overdose. We seek to work on the front lines of the overdose crisis and to educate both people who use drugs and the general public about the structural nature of addiction. Overdose reversal is an immediate emergency measure, but we recognize that the problem is structural and thus requires structural solutions.
The number of deaths due to overdose is up to a classification of epidemic level here in our city and around the county. We recognize that capitalism itself is the fundamental cause, or the vector of disease. The same brutal system that requires and feeds on extraction, marginalization, racialization, and oppression to uplift a wealthy few creates the conditions for disease among the people. Capitalism is the disease vector, and socialism is the means for the cure. We demand harm-reducing measures like needle exchanges and safe injection facilities; healthcare without a profit motive; patient involvement in their own care; decriminalization, total decarceration, safe housing, education, and healthy food as fundamental rights; an end to segregation, deprivation, and dispossession; an end to poverty and the wage system.
While working towards social transformation - for a society better equipped to address the root causes of the overdose crisis - we are getting Narcan out on the street. A primary goal of our Narcan distribution is to give people agency when they make the decision to call 911. In 2016, 7,853 doses of naloxone were administered in NYC (nearly equivalent to one potentially fatal overdose reversed every hour). Only 186 of those were administered by community responders as opposed to EMS. We see that as 7,667 times the police showed up to a tense and vulnerable situation.
Want a harm reduction training and Narcan distribution at your bar, affinity group meeting, party, or anywhere? Reach out via email to nycdsahr@gmail.com
Want to be involved in this work? Fill out our interest form: https://goo.gl/pTKY35
