Preble Street founder Joe Kreisler said: “Part of being alive is making sure other people are, too.” With the rising opiate crisis in Maine, however, this part of our job – keeping people alive – consumes us more than it should.
We are, far too often, the first and last responders: with rescue breaths, sternal rubs and intranasal application of naloxone. And we keep people alive.
When the governor says, “Naloxone does not truly save lives; it merely extends them until the next overdose,” it sounds like he is saying that some people are not worth keeping alive, that some people do not deserve our compassion, care and humanity, or medicine. That recovery is impossible.
The truth is, people recover and they slip and they recover again.
This year, for the first time in 40 years, two people died in the Preble Street Resource Center. Without the tools to keep them alive, more are sure to die.
They are lives worth saving.
Lives that include the man who nearly overdosed outside the resource center but is now living sober in northern Maine with his girlfriend and daughter; the one who survived to reunite with his wife in New York; and another who is alive in his apartment in Portland and active with Young People in Recovery. They have their lives back because of naloxone.
Harm reduction saves lives, saves public money and makes recovery possible. State Sen. Anne Haskell said it best: “You can’t help a dead person.”
Thirty states already permit the sale of naloxone over the counter, and the medical and scientific communities overwhelmingly support making it more accessible.
The Maine Legislature has an opportunity Friday to override the governor’s veto and make sure naloxone is available in life-and-death incidents. We strongly urge them to do so.
They will literally be saving lives.
Mark R. Swann, MSPA
executive director, Preble Street
Portland
Send questions/comments to the editors.
