News Workers Fighting America’s Overdose Crisis Are ‘Hanging by a Thread’

[thegreenhand]

Workers Fighting America’s Overdose Crisis Are ‘Hanging by a Thread’​

Noah Weiland
New York Times
10 Feb 2023

Excerpts:

OSCEOLA, Iowa — So many of Deborah Krauss’s friends and neighbors have died of drug overdoses during the pandemic that she said she felt as if she had been living inside of a dream. The longest she has gone without someone dying, she noted, is three weeks. Her calendar grew cluttered with funerals.

“I lost count at 40,” she recalled on a recent evening in a Des Moines office as she organized supplies to help people consume drugs more safely. “And it just keeps happening.”

Ms. Krauss works for the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition, one of the few harm reduction groups in the state. The coalition operates a syringe exchange program, which also routes drug users to medication-assisted treatment, where they receive drugs that can help manage cravings.

Researchers at RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, estimate that there are only around 1,100 full-time workers nationwide like Ms. Krauss, aided by a cast of around 600 part-time staff members and roughly 2,000 volunteers. A national survey conducted by RTI found that the median annual budget of a syringe exchange program was roughly $100,000, far less than what is needed to cover salaries, supplies and travel expenses.

 

[thegreenhand]

it's not terribly surprising, but those numbers are alarmingly low

 

[LucidSDreamr]

That's a low budget not even state funded. Iowas republicans are murdering their states drug addicts just like their base wants.

Even CA where harm reduction is close to getting injection centers open....the whole thing of Still maintaining a fentanyl based drug supply is that tons of ppl will die unless dilauded or heroin is legalized. This would cut overdoses by more than half overnight.

 

[G_Chem]

Unfortunately for now these programs are literally supported by the volunteers who work them. So unless we want to collapse entirely we need to help them. I’ve thought about becoming a volunteer but at the moment don’t have the time, soon I hope to change that.

I agree Iowa seems to be turned into a republican hell hole. I enjoy going to certain spots there for music (believe it or not) but could never live there.

-GC

 

[thegreenhand]

Unfortunately for now these programs are literally supported by the volunteers who work them.

And the saddest part is that there is a plethora of salaried recovery coaches, counselors, etc.

But most of them only help with abstinence based recovery

 

[JustferFun]

Am I losing my mind or are fentanyl test strips banned in like 40 states?