We’re failing kids in drug education. How can we fix it?

Zoe Kellner aged 21

Last week at an open and lush Midtown East coffee shop, I met a stranger, a chance Twitter connection. This well-dressed, petite, dark-haired woman somehow recognized me when I was still half a block away, her clasped hands in front of her glimpsing into a wave. “I knew it was you,” she began warmly. Then, over black iced coffee, she told me everything. Alone in the cafe, this unexpected newfound friend, Robin, told me about drugs and her daughter.
Four years ago she lost her only child, Zoe, to drug overdose. Zoe, a vibrant, beautiful 22-year-old college student, born and raised in New York who preferred West side to East. A young woman who fatally overdosed before entering treatment.
Read Zoe’s story, narrated by her mom. It took everything I had not to cry as her brave mother described the most tragic event of her life.
Today, August 31, is Overdose Awareness Day. And as much as we would like to think otherwise, to think it’s some other person or family, substance abuse and addiction hit us all. Similar to a plane accident, the conventional wisdom goes, “well, that won’t happen.” Well, yes, it could. It could happen to any of us. Zoe’s mom learned that:

I want to start the story when my daughter Zoe was in the 9th grade at a wonderful school in New York City. It is a lovely, nurturing, very sweet school, small, like a family, a community. She started in the first grade and went all the way through high school and graduated from there.
But in the 9th grade something happened that I can’t help thinking back to now.
One of Zoe’s classmates was very suddenly removed from school and sent out west to rehab. The next day, the school called a parent breakfast, because the kids were buzzing about what happened, and the parents didn’t really understand.
As I sat at this breakfast, and they explained what had happened to this young man, who was a good friend of Zoe’s, I thought to myself, “What am I doing here? This has nothing to do with me, because it’s so not Zoe.”
Fast forward. This young boy – now a young man — lives out in California, has a band, owns part of a restaurant, is smart and handsome and successful and thriving. Zoe is gone.
As parents, we don’t want to think our kids could get off track. In a million years, I never thought that I would be the parent who would lose a child to drugs. I never, ever, ever thought that could happen...

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Cassie Rodenberg @'Scientific American'

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Overdose prevention

Rocker's Wife Warns About Drug Overdoses

I can't help but think back 40 years ago; to the time I got up close and personal with overdose. The Sunset Strip scene of 1966, 1967's "Summer of Love" and the Monterey Pop Festival were my rock 'n' roll training grounds. I was working in the A & R department of Liberty Records, and by 1968 I had moved in with and was soon married to rock icon John Densmore of the Doors.
A most fabulous lifestyle; all fun and no consequences. I often look back and wonder what the world would be like if we knew then what we know now.
I remember an intimate birthday dinner party for Jim Morrison before he went to Paris. We all laughed when another Doors wife and I rolled up the birthday present we had found for Jim - a Courvoisier cognac bottle decanter on wheels made to look like an antique war cannon. Today I might choose something different.
Even then there were whisperings about some of our favorite musicians; friends being "real" junkies - Tim Hardin, James Taylor? It was hard to believe. Then came the news - both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were dead.
But the real shock came when my own mother died at 47 of an overdose. Still I saw it as a fluke - expected, after all my mother had a long history of problems.
Then Jim. Jim Morrison! Even our own little rock circle didn't seem to know an overdose killed Jim. Today I have no doubt that it did - and that his life could have been saved.
Suddenly hearing about someone you knew from the music scene dying from overdose became commonplace. "Remember so-and-so, the drummer from so-and so?"  "Yeah why?"  "He OD'd." "Far out."
Only it wasn't really so far out, it was just sad. I developed a drug habit right along with my second husband, Three Dog Night singer Chuck Negron. We took ODs in stride, happy to survive, part of the price, part of the game.
Who knew we would survive long enough to look back in sadness on the wasted lives and unsung songs, the unwritten poetry, the unpainted art.
My own life was saved twice by Narcan (naloxone), administered by the private paramedic some of us big shots kept on call. In 1984, my own baby sister died of a drug overdose. 1985 would find me checking into rehab at Cedars hospital, never to shoot heroin again.
As time marched on I would see my own son on life support, another overdose! OK today, though, and in recovery, thanks to medical intervention. But not so lucky were all the rocker parents who did lose their children. Oscar Scaggs, Jessica Rebennack, Andre Young Jr - so many kids of music legends lost.  All lives that could have been saved, like mine, if we had known how to prevent a drug overdose from becoming fatal.
Aug. 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day. Today we know that all life matters and things can change. Now that I am a cleverly preserved rock dowager, relying on my stories and memories for thrills, I've painfully watched a younger generation of rockers die of overdoses. Their numbers are legion, the sadness intolerable - they would have practiced their art for another 40 years like my lucky living peers have. Alive today, long gray hair, our leather pants bursting a little bit at the bum. We are still full of stories and music, all the promise that rocked life in the '60s. I want that young life and music to continue.
On Aug. 31 I will be taking my hippie sensibilities out of mothballs for a street protest in Hollywood to raise awareness that overdose is preventable, a medical emergency to be treated with urgency, dignity and without fear of arrest. If Jim Morrison were alive today he would have at least written about a poem about it and maybe joined me - gray hair, bursting leathers pants and all.
Via

The overdose crisis can be meet with solutions

International Overdose Awareness Day

My son Bradley Nowell, front man for Sublime, fought his heroin addiction for years before succumbing to an overdose on May 25, 1996, a date that will live in the memory of all who loved him. On the eve of International Overdose Awareness Day (31 August) Jason Flom has some good ideas on the subject.
 As in most cases of addiction, be it alcohol, smoking or drugs, the addict fights a life time battle to overcome their addiction. Brad got clean several times but in the end failed to resist the cravings. In cases of accidental overdose it will help if every drug addict, and the people who are close to him, carries naloxone to administer on the spot to overcome the effects. Further if "911 Good Samaritan" laws were in effect in every jurisdiction it would encourage friends to call immediately when early treatment is so critical. Brad overdosed more that once but friends and loved ones were there previously to get him help.
The addict must continually confront and try to overcome his cravings. if he can survive accidental overdoses he can live to fight another day.
Jim Nowell
@'Sublime' 

Bradley Nowell’s Father Pens Letter On Eve Of International Overdose Awareness Day

MorelandHall Moreland Hall

Naloxone (Narcan) was administered successfully 1188 times by ambos in Victoria, Australia in 2009/2010 #OD11 pic.twitter.com/lUslNgx

#OD11

Via

Meghan Ralston: An Open Letter to CA Governor Jerry Brown on International Overdose Awareness Day

Dear Governor Brown,
No other state in the country endures as many annual deaths from accidental drug overdose as California. In sheer numbers of lives lost, California bears the tragic, and embarrassing, distinction of being "number one." August 31 is International Overdose Awareness Day and I'm hoping this is the day you will commit to leading us out of this needless tragedy.
Like so many of us, some of your friends have battled addiction for many years. I'm certain you're thankful that they're still here to keep fighting, keep trying to get it right. Your loved ones are still alive--you're lucky, and they're lucky. But this year alone, tens of thousands of American families won't share your good fortune. Their luck will run out. If recent national trends are any indication, by the year's end approximately 28,000 people will have died prematurely from a preventable fatal drug overdose. In 16 states, accidental drug overdose is the single leading cause of accidental death, claiming more lives than motor vehicle crashes. The majority of these deaths involve prescription opioid painkillers.
We urgently need your leadership on this issue right here and now. We need to let Californians know that solutions exist. We need to pass AB 472, the "911 Good Samaritan" overdose death prevention bill, and start a statewide conversation about the myriad solutions to the problem.
Tackling the problem of accidental fatal drug overdose is complicated. There isn't a single magic bullet that will save all lives. Of course we need to expand access to a range of affordable, effective drug treatment programs, including medications like methadone. Of course we need to educate physicians about the responsible prescribing of opioid medications. But these solutions alone won't end the crisis. They can't prevent a college student from dying at a party if his friends panic when they can't wake him up. We need a range of solutions. Fortunately, one of them costs taxpayers nothing and is ready for your signature: Assemblymember Ammiano's AB 472, California's "911 Good Samaritan" bill.
By providing the 911 caller and the overdose victim with limited immunity from arrest for possession of a small amount of drugs or paraphernalia, AB 472 will make it much easier, and far more likely, for a panicking bystander to call for emergency assistance. These are the lowest level drug crimes versus the highest human impulse--the desire to sustain life.
Research repeatedly proves that the main reason people hesitate or fail to call 911 during an overdose is their fear of arrest. New Mexico, Connecticut, Washington and New York have already enacted similar laws that encourage people to do the right thing when someone's life is on the line. These policies prioritize pragmatism over ideology, and the net result is more lives saved and, not incidentally, more people able to pursue recovery.
We can support solutions like expanding access to the generic drug naloxone, the very low cost overdose reversal drug with absolutely no potential for abuse. When administered to someone experiencing an overdose on an opiate drug like OxyContin or heroin, it restores respiration and consciousness. It's been our country's first line of defense in ambulances and emergency rooms for more than 40 years. In the hands of trained medical professionals and laypersons with access to it, naloxone has saved thousands of lives, but could be saving countless more--if people knew it existed, knew to ask their doctors about it, and knew where to find it.
While we all agree that we ought to do everything in our power to prevent our loved ones, especially our youth, from using dangerous drugs, we also know that many will, despite our most concerted efforts. We have to find ways of keeping them alive, even when they use drugs.
Governor, please stand in solidarity with the thousands of Californian families working to solve the problems of addiction and overdose. For many of them, International Overdose Awareness Day is not merely symbolic--it's a day when they unite in common purpose to help save lives. Please sign AB 472 and demonstrate to the country that California's overdose epidemic ends with your leadership.
Meghan Ralston is the Harm Reduction coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance.
@'AlterNet'

overdosegirl overdosegirl 
Love, respect & gratitude to the Australians, especially Sally Finn--the woman who started Overdose Awareness Day there 11 yrs ago.

Overdose Awareness Day on Twitter

Take Action

More Americans die of accidental drug overdose than from firearms. Tell President Obama to stop letting people die because of bad drug policy.
US Overdose Awareness Day Events 

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