Decreased surprise in the death of an overdose of the drug in the United States: NPR

Emily Coong, host:

Each month, NPR Brian Man Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondent Correspondence For years, this number rose only, but at the end of 2023 …

Bian Man, side lines: suddenly, data that comes out of and prevention control centers showed this decrease.

Coong: Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the next month, the same.

Man: One month, two months in a row, drop. Three months …

Kwong: Brian also began to hear the same thing from the street sources, such a man, Kevin Donaldson, who was using fentanel and Zelasine in Perlington, Vermont.

Kevin Donaldson: For a while there, we heard about it every day. But when was the last overdose we heard about? Two weeks ago, perhaps – this is very far and few between.

Man: What I heard from people who used drugs on the street, talking to people who receive harm in the front line, listen to people in Washington, and looked at this, they were saying, this is different. The massacre looks to relieve. Suddenly, there was a shift.

Coong: All over the country, the excessive dose deaths continued to decline to this day.

Man: This happened at the level of science fiction, as it did not happen before in the history of the American drug crisis. This is even before the birth control pill in the 1990s, returning to heroin, and returning to cocaine. We have never solved the drug epidemic the way these numbers refer to. The best interventions with everyone who throws everything in the problem sometimes can reduce the problem by 8 and 9 %. We now see states where drug deaths decrease by 50 % in one year – 30 %, 40 % common now – this level of decline, where many lives are rescued.

Kwong: Today, for our weekly correspondent books, we will reveal the mystery of this rapid reflection with Brian, an NPR addiction correspondent. All the things that are hosting the participant Scott Ditro pick up the conversation from here to talk about the reasons behind the amazing public health victory.

Scott Detro, host:

Well, we walk through some of the biggest theories. What are the ideas about the reason for this?

Man: Well, so I want to talk about the happy, desired parts only in a second, but let me start with some darker reasons that may happen. One thing is that many people have died, Scott. I mean, this was bad. Like, this was terrifying – 114,000 people in one year, 110,000 in another year. So many people have disappeared, this is definitely part of it.

Another thing that happens is that people on the streets tell me regularly that they learned how to use fentanel – this really dangerous medicine – more safely. Not safely – I don’t want to deal with this again, but they are better in that.

Detrow: It is incredibly dangerous. Yes.

Man: They do not use it indifferently as they used to. Thus, some people who are still in severe and very healthy addiction to this toxic medicine survive. They live longer, and this is good because it means that they have more opportunities to recover, and more opportunities to get out of this course. I do not want to say that they have recovered, that they are in good health, or that they are outside the street. They are still in a really dark place.

Detrow: Well, this is the dark side of this. Talk to me through some of the most positive thinking here, some factors related to the policy that can occur.

Man: Yes, and I think the data here is really strong, because we have seen one of the most effective general policy responses to the health crisis in the history of the United States, right? So what the Biden administration did – they came a year later when drug deaths increased by 30 %. This is what happened in the last year of the Trump administration. They inherit the burning crisis of death and combustion throughout the country. They immediately start making great changes.

First of all, they are working to obtain Noloxon – this medicine that reflects excessive doses – they really pay for this on the street, and they get it everywhere. They flooded the field with Noluxon and Narcan, and I now find it everywhere. And I want to present to you Gilson. It already works as a person to reduce the damage in Philadelphia, but it was on the street. It was a Ventanil user. You are talking about what it was before the Biden Noloxon team provided easily available.

Scout Gilson: I remember having to determine whether I would give someone enough from Narcan and realize that this might mean that I no longer have anything. Because I don’t know how to reach it, someone else may die.

Detrow: Wow.

Man: This type of account, Scott, happened every day in every street in America. People were thinking, would I help this person alive, or did I save it myself? And now this is not the same. Everyone has two narks. There is also a full range of other things – many of which are funded by expanding medicaid under reasonable prices – that made insurance coverage widely available for people who need addiction treatment. It also made it relatively easy to get the poprinorphine and metadon. These are medications that help people avoid relapses in the use of fentanel.

All of these things that hit the field at the same time – Biden team inherits a 30 % increase in drug deaths. When they left the White House, drug deaths decreased by 25 %. So this is the arc that they managed to withdraw …

Detrow: Yes.

Man: … in four years.

Detrow: I have now mentioned a kind of black hole of the policy that revolves around each conversation. So let’s get into this because you are talking about this incredibly positive record about the issue of what many Americans feel anxious and concerned. However, I was closely covered by the campaign. This is not a field in which the Biden administration really tells a high -level story or get a lot of credit, at least as an issue at the highest level. Why do you think this was? What did you see when I saw this play in the campaign?

Man: It was really strong watching him as a journalist. On the one hand, Scott, day after day, I was seeing this data uniting this public health victory, this victory in politics. Then what I was going to do was run the radio, and I heard Kamala Harris, Vice President and candidate, talking about fentanel as if it were a problem they could not really deal with. At one time in discussion with Trump, she indicated the fact that his political allies have developed an attempt to increase security, including drug security on the southern border. Here it is.

(Soundbite from the Archiving Registration)

Kamala Harris: It was possible to allow us to stop the flow of the next fentanel to the United States. I know that there are many families that are seen tonight and that were personally affected by the increase in fentanel in our country.

Man: Meanwhile, let me be exposed to you and give you a taste of how Trump’s conversation at the time is about this. Here he is outside the campaign path.

(Soundbite from the Archiving Registration)

President Donald Trump: I will stop drugs and fentanol to flow to our country, killing our children and families. We will stop it.

(acclaim)

Trump: I have reached the lowest number in 32 years. Then these people took over, and what happened to our limits? What happened – even the medications that flow, at nine, tell me. It is more than nine times than we have.

Man: What President Trump is now saying there is not realistic. As you know, the fentanel was spreading quickly in the United States during its first term. Drug deaths, as we mentioned, were rising. However, it was clear that it was with the most powerful message leading to election day.

Detrow: I want to ask about you and how you think about this because you cover a lot of different topics. I have covered wars for us, I have covered the Olympic Games for us. You have this complete sub -type of Brian Man pieces where you go on a picnic and make people feel very jealous to listen to you on a picnic on the radio. But you continue to return to this topic, and this is a really difficult topic to think about it and talk about it. What is the drag for you?

Man: You know, addiction to my family. I have a beloved sister’s wife who grew up with her, Rick (PH), who, as you know, have attracted to the pain epidemic and finally died of complications related to his addiction. My father was deep in addiction to many of my childhood and a lot of my adult life.

The thing that was really – was strong for me was that I did not understand any of that. I was like most Americans, I think. I had a deep stigma on this topic. I hated it. I was afraid of that. And only when I started to understand the presence of treatments, there are good ways based on science, based on science to help people recover, have you started to collect these pieces? I have great regret about how I thought about my family, and how I moved to my life before entering this.

So I try to tell people that this addiction is very frightening and often ugly, frankly – it’s also something that responds to politics. It responds to health care and science. It is clear that the data is quite clear that if you help people survive for a sufficient period, through overwhelming margins, they recover, and they are in good health again, they really continue a good life.

I did not know enough about it in my family to help reach those places. I have been away from that, frankly, which is why I am very loyal to this pulse and this topic because I love the idea that, a little, more Americans realize that there is another aspect of this story and another aspect of how to respond to this.

Detrow: This is the NPR Brian Man addiction correspondent. Brian, thanks for helping us understand these trends and help us understand how you deal with the story.

Man: Well. Thank you. Thanks for hosting (PH).

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