Posted on August 18, 2021
August 31st is International Overdose Awareness Day, the world’s largest annual campaign to end overdose, to remember without stigma those who have died, and to acknowledge the grief of the family friends left behind.
The Center for Disease Control estimates that about 93,000 people died from an overdose in 2020, a nearly 30% increase in deaths compared to 2019.
This issue affects everyone of us, our friends and certainly our communities. In an effort to combat this epidemic, the legislature passed HB 5597, a bill I co-sponsored, to establish a pilot program to expand a peer navigator program – similar to the successful New London Cares project – that requires participating municipalities to send peer navigators out to address the health care and social needs of people with opioid use disorder. Peer navigators also receive updated training on non-coercive and non-stigmatizing methods for engaging people with the disorder. I also supported HB 6588 to prohibit health care providers from being required to prescribe more than the physician-recommended dose of prescription drugs if deemed clinically inappropriate, reducing the potential for substance misuse or abuse.
For more information on Opioids, Overdose Prevention, and Naloxone/Narcan, please visit: https://portal.ct.gov/dph/Health-Education-Management–Surveillance/The-Office-of-Injury-Prevention/Opioids-and-Prescription-Drug-Overdose-Prevention-Program
Please join me on August 31st in support of the men and women bravely fighting this disease, and to recognize all those we lost.