Anti-overdose kits go to drug addicts

The needle-exchange CHOW Project and University Health Partners of Hawai‘i began handing out the first of 50 free anti-overdose kits to Oahu drug users on Monday to try to keep opioid abusers alive.

Charles Morrison, 51, lives homeless near the Pali Highway and has been shooting heroin for the past 35 years, during which time he’s seen six of his friends overdose.

“They’re dead, all of ’em,” Morrison said. “There was nothing I could do.”

But on Monday, at the encouragement of a CHOW outreach worker, Morrison walked into Harris United Methodist Church on South Vineyard Boulevard and left with two sterile syringes and two vials that each contained 1 milliliter of a drug called naloxone that could save the life of Morrison or one of his buddies during an overdose.

“The best thing you can do is be alive,” Morrison said.

Drug overdoses are the No. 1 cause of injury death across the country. And in Hawaii, drug overdoses have led all other injury-related deaths — including car crashes, falls and drownings — since 2010, according to the state Department of Health.

Monday’s disbursements of the anti-overdose kits were allowed through the Legislature’s passage of Act 68, which Gov. David Ige signed on July 7.

The law allows health care professionals to prescribe and administer the medicine while indemnifying people who call 911 during an overdose from being prosecuted for possessing drugs or drug paraphernalia, according to Dr. Tricia Wright of the University of Hawaii’s medical school, who issued a prescription for the naloxone kits and is serving as the “collaborating physician” on the project.

The CHOW Project and University Health Partners of Hawai‘i — the faculty practice of the University of Hawaii’s medical school — are the first to distribute the kits since Ige signed Act 68, according to Heather Lusk, CHOW Project’s executive director.

The CHOW Project is a community health outreach program “to reduce drug-related harms such as but not limited to HIV, hepatitis B/C and overdose,” according to the group’s website.

The CHOW Project paid for the kits, which cost $40 each. Within the next few weeks, the organization plans to distribute more of the kits on the neighbor islands while raising money to buy more down the line.

The nonprofit CHOW Project hopes to distribute 500 kits statewide by the end of the year, and raise money to distribute more next year.

Naloxone has no value as a street drug, Lusk said, and there are no major side effects.

“It’s not going to get anyone high,” Lusk said. “Just the opposite.”

Naloxone blocks opioids from the body’s neuro-transmitters, effectively ending the users’ high while halting an overdose, she said.

While opioids such as morphine, fentanyl, hydrocodone and OxyContin are being abused on the mainland in alarming numbers, in the islands, Lusk said, “the drug of choice is heroin.”

Unlike heroin, which is typically injected into a vein, naloxone goes into a muscle during an overdose, she said.

The overdose victim might stop breathing or develop a noisy breathing “rattle,” and could develop blue lips or blue finger tips from oxygen deprivation, along with frothing at the mouth, she said.

“Usually it happens relatively quickly,” Lusk said.

The victim will be in such distress during an overdose that administering naloxone personally is highly unlikely, Lusk said.

Instead, it’ll probably be up to somebody else to inject the drug and call 911 to get the victim to a hospital.

Based on the CHOW Project’s needle-exchange clients, Lusk estimates that three-fourths of Hawaii’s opioid abusers are likely homeless. She estimates that homeless people are nine times more likely to die of an opioid overdose than non-homeless users.

But opioid overdoses can kill anyone, including Oscar-winning actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman, “Glee” star Cory Monteith and three-time world surfing champion Andy Irons of Kauai, Lusk said.

Back in 1998, Jean Mooney saw how easy her heroin dealer overdosed in her apartment in Makiki — and how quickly he recovered once paramedics arrived and injected a version of naloxone.

“I was freaking out completely,” said Mooney, 50, who works for the CHOW Project as a housing case manager. “It was insane.”

Like others coming out of sobriety or out of prison, Mooney said, her drug dealer had been clean but relapsed while injecting the same high dose of heroin as before.

“I said, ‘You’re doing way too much, I don’t want you OD’ing in my apartment,’” Mooney remembered. “Then he started gurgling. It was terrifying.”

Once paramedics revived her drug dealer, Mooney said, “he was completely sober,” adding, “It blocks the opioids, so he was angry.”

Mooney said she eventually kicked her own 20-year heroin habit 10 years ago while in prison.

Because she saw how naloxone can quickly help someone who has overdosed, Mooney is now recommending the free kits.

“Everyone who’s using opioids should get one,” Mooney said. “It will save someone’s life. Dead people can’t recover.”