Mitigating opioids’ harm

Cassandra Willyard 1SEPTEMBER 11, 2019

Ideally, opioid addiction could be prevented altogether. But failing that, strategies to make drug use safer can curb opioid-related death.

Haven Wheelock carries a dose of naloxone everywhere she goes. She calls it a “magical medication” with the power to bring people back from the brink of death.

Wheelock runs a syringe-exchange programme for Outside In, a non-profit organization that provides medical care and other services for low-income and homeless people in Portland, Oregon. She has administered the opioid-blocking medication 21 times. The drug has never failed, but that doesn’t make using it any less terrifying.

Read the full article at Nature.com