A health care conference in Windsor has heard everyone should have naloxone--the medication used to reverse the effects of a drug overdose.
Hundreds of health care professionals packed the Ciociaro Club on Thursday to attend the City of Roses 6th annual community Emergency Medicine Conference.
Dr. Bram Dolcourt, a medical toxicologist at Wayne State University, told the crowd that society has been treating pain more aggressively and there is a lot of blame to go around.
"There has been a push for increased pain control because there were studies that were showing people had their pain inadequately controlled," he says. "We may have pushed it a little bit overboard, where we were prescribing opiates thinking they weren't as addictive as we had thought."
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Over the weekend in Windsor, four people died within 24 hours of a drug overdose.
Dolcourt says the majority of people initially get addicted through prescribed medication.
"Many people who use opiates get theirs off the streets and don't get theirs from physicians, but their initial exposure was from a physician, so it may start off one way and end up with something that is complete illicit rather than a physician who is prescribing inappropriately."
Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick is against frontline officers carrying naloxone, but Dr. Dolcourt disagrees and believes it is part of the answer.
"Naloxone is safe. It is very easy to use, as far as I'm concerned everyone should have naloxone so the police should absolutely carry it. The public, someone who uses opiates chronically, even chronically inappropriately because it is an easy medication to use that is safe and very effective."
Dr. Dolcourt says in Michigan, naloxone is now available over-the-counter.
He also believes 'safe injection sites' should be considered to help reduce fatalities.