By MAIA SZALAVITZ
Friday, May. 29, 2009
If there's anything more empowering than bringing someone back to life, Dan Bigg wouldn't know. He has personally resuscitated five people who were unconscious from drug overdoses, and the organization he co-founded in 1991, Chicago Recovery Alliance, has helped save hundreds of others from accidental drug-related death.
The organization's strategy is a simple one: Help people help themselves. Since 2001, Chicago Recovery Alliance has distributed more than 11,000 anti-overdose kits to drug users at needle-exchange programs and other sites in Chicago. The kits, which include vials of the drug naloxone (brand name Narcan), commonly used in hospitals and ambulances to reverse opiate overdose, have led to at least 1,000 successful overdose reversals in the city since 2001, according to Bigg. They are now part of a growing nationwide effort to stem the increasing rate of accidental drug-related fatalities.
Overdoses kill some 22,000 Americans each year — more than homicide and, in some states, like Utah, more than car accidents. Most overdose deaths happen accidentally, and most involve a combination of an opioid — either prescription painkillers, like methadone or OxyContin, or street drugs like heroin — and other depressant drugs, such as alcohol or Xanax. (Such deadly cocktails were responsible for the deaths of actor Heath Ledger in 2008 and former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith in 2007.) Typically, people who overdose on prescription drugs have a history of addiction, and they end up either taking more than their prescribed dose or mixing painkillers with other substances. ....
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