Our Views

Heroin and other opiates killed more than double the number of people killed by guns in Massachusetts in 2005. Consequently, the state government, while acknowledging its failure to resolve the problem of heroin addiction by getting addicts into heroin detox and drug rehab, is going to distribute doses of Narcan to help addicts stay alive until they’re ‘ready for treatment.” Who says they’re not ready for treatment now?

According to a recent article, some paramedics and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy question the idea of one addict administering treatment to another - Narcan is squirted up the nose of someone who has overdosed on opiates to reverse the effects. The person doing the squirting would be another addict.

Others feel that heroin addiction would be encouraged by making Narcan available to all.

“You give them the Narcan, where is their motivation to change? The addict is going to say, ‘I just overdosed and I got another lease on life — great,” said Michael Gimbel, a recovering heroin addict who was director of substance abuse in Maryland’s Baltimore County for 23 years. “Giving Narcan might give them that false sense that ‘I can live forever,’ which is not what we want.”

I’ve been around plenty of heroin addiction, and was an addict myself, and I don’t believe that the threat of death is the only motivation an addict has to get off drugs. Just because they don’t walk into a drug detox center on their own and ask for help doesn’t mean they don’t want it, and it doesn’t mean they’re not ready for it. Don’t be fooled by their protests. They want to end their heroin addiction, and they need your help to do so.

If someone you care about is a heroin addict and you feel they’re not ready for treatment, call an interventionist to help you out. Don’t depend on Narcan to just keep him alive until he’s ‘ready’. It may never happen in the way that you’re expecting. A good interventionist will help get him to agree to treatment, and get him into a drug detox center so he can get through heroin addiction once and for all.

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