Imitating the sounds of suffocation, Jeff Devito demonstrated the symptoms of opioid overdose before distributing potentially-lifesaving Narcan kits to dozens of Marin County residents.
Devito, chief of addiction services for the county’s Health and Human Services Department, joined a group of presenters Wednesday during a public forum in San Rafael on fentanyl, heroin and other opioids. Event hosts, including the county, Dominican University and RxSafe Marin, gave attendees free Narcan kits and provided training on how to use them.
Narcan, a chemical that can counteract the sometimes-lethal symptoms of opioid overdose when administered through a victim’s nose, is carried by police officers, firefighters and paramedics throughout Marin County, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
“We’re trying to get Narcan more widely distributed in order to keep up with this epidemic,” said Matthew Willis, the public health officer with the department. “That’s why we chose to hand it out to attendees at this event. We want to make sure it’s in the hands of family and friends of users who might be bystanders in the event of an opioid overdose.”
The presenters, all experts representing local and national agencies working with drug users, shared the latest statistics about opioid use and described the strategies local agencies are using to fight back against a national epidemic that authorities say is prevalent in Marin.
“Opioid overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in Marin County and exceeds the death rates from motor vehicles significantly,” Willis said.
He noted that local opioid use patterns have shifted in recent years.
“We’ve seen a decrease in overdoses caused by prescription opioids,” Willis said. “But we’re now seeing an almost proportional increase in overdoses caused by illicit opioids like heroin and fentanyl.”
The department last year began training police officers in Marin to administer Narcan. Since those trainings, the chemical has been used by officers to intervene in seven opioid-related overdoses in the area, Willis said.
Emergency Medical Services in Marin administered 138 Narcan doses in 2017. The chemical was administered 17 times that year by people who weren’t EMS personnel, according to the county’s data.
Most overdoses in Marin occur in San Rafael and Novato, according to the health department. But incidents occur in nearly every city and town within the county.
In both July and August, Marin County Emergency Medical Services received 16 calls involving potential opioid overdoses — up from 8 in June and 10 in May.
California’s Office for Statewide Health Planning and Development collects annual statistics on opioid-related emergency room visits throughout the state. In 2015, the most recent year for which the office has data published, 425 visits were reported in Marin County. In 2014, 450 visits were reported and 352 were reported in 2013.
Devito on Wednesday discussed the importance of treatment centers in helping to combat the epidemic.
Marin City Health and Wellness and San Rafael’s Marin Treatment Center, he said, are the only organizations in Marin that provide methadone or buprenorphine. Devito said those drugs can be effective treatment options for users hoping to overcome opioid addiction.
“This treatment works,” Devito said. “It saves lives.”
The Spahr Center, an organization in San Rafael, provides overdose prevention education, disease testing and clean syringe access and connects users with recovery resources.
Andy Fyne, who works with the center, told attendees at Wednesday’s forum that Spahr aims to create a “safe, welcoming, non-judgmental place” for those with opioid addictions.
The center is also one of only a few places in Marin that provides access to Narcan kits.
RxSafe Marin is working to make the kits available at more locations around the county, according to Maureen De-Nieva Marsh, a project coordinator for the initiative. Besides the Spahr Center, the chemical is currently only available at Marin Treatment Center, Marin City Health and Wellness and a small handful of local pharmacies, she said.
The kits, which include two doses each, retail for about 150 dollars, according to De-Nieva Marsh.The steep price tag is why hosts of Wednesday’s forum wanted to hand out Narcan for free. She said the initiative wasn’t unique to Marin County — agencies nationwide are giving out Narcan in an effort to make it more readily available.
“This kind of distribution is becoming a new strategy to lean into,” she said.
