Opioid concerns keeping McNutt vigilant
International Overdose Awareness Day marked Thursday
As a young man, Albert McNutt saw overdosing as the solution.
Reeling from depression and the knowledge that he had HIV, he swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills hoping to end it all, but was rescued by friends and rushed to hospital.
Twenty years later, McNutt volunteers at the Northern Healthy Connections Society in Truro — and he had this warning on International Overdose Awareness Day, which was marked Thursday.
“It is happening here,” said
McNutt.
In February, robbers attacked a residence near
Truro and made off with fentanyl, morphine, cash and a cellphone.
While a lethal opioid crisis has swept across Canada and fentanyl has been reported in both Truro and Halifax, the NHCS is not yet aware of any fatal overdoses in its region, which covers Colchester-East Hants, Cumberland and Pictou Counties.
“The news would travel pretty quickly,” said McNutt.
For him, the solution to opioid use, overdoses and drug addiction was education, treatment and ensuring both clean supplies and a safe space for people who use drugs in a harm-reduction approach. Above all, it means accepting drug users as people who may live next door and shop in the same stores as non-users, instead of criminals.
“That individual is someone’s family member. It’s someone’s child and they need the same equality of healthcare that everyone assumes they get,” said McNutt.
Currently the NHCS has about 125 people enrolled as clients, who receive assistance with needle exchanges, medical and food bank referrals and individual and group support, among other services.
While the NHCS enjoys support from partners including the Town of Truro, the support it offers is just a drop in Canada’s ongoing opioid crisis.
In Nova Scotia alone, roughly 60 opioid overdose deaths were reported in 2016, including four people killed by illicit fentanyl.
But the Nova Scotian total was just a tiny fraction of 2,458 opioid overdose deaths reported across Canada last year, according to a Huffington Post report from June.
The worst-affected areas were Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories and Yukon, where death ratios were 10 per 100,000 people.
Fentanyl, one of the most powerful opioids, is up to 100 times stronger than morphine and is meant to be used as a painkiller under medical supervision.
However, illicit fentanyl from the Far East has entered Canada via Vancouver and is often used to cut other drugs like cocaine.
“It’s really taking its toll on the whole country,” said McNutt.
However, Nova Scotia is trying to prevent a B.C.-style spate of overdose deaths by handing out 5,000 free naloxone kits – an antidote for opioid overdoses – to pharmacies, police forces and jails.
Of the $1.1 million in naloxone kit funding announced in March, $564,000 will pay for the antidote in community pharmacies and harm reduction clinics in Truro, Sydney and Halifax.
But for those who attempt suicide through overdosing, the solution for McNutt was more fundamental.
“You need to find something to live for,” he said. “I have a grandson. I never thought I’d have a grandson.”