KENNEY MILLER, co-founder of the Maine Harm Reduction Alliance, is shown with Rep. Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, after receiving this year’s Harm Reduction Heroes award. Gideon and Rep. Ann Dorney, D-Norridgewock, were honored for their work to expand access of naloxone to first responders and family members of opiate users.
A local legislator was honored Wednesday with the Harm Reduction Heroes award for working to put a drug that counters opiate overdoses in the hands of first responders.
At the annual Maine Harm Reduction conference, Rep. Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, was recognized for her sponsoring of LD 1686, “An Act to Address Preventable Deaths from Drug Overdose.”
Naloxone, also called Narcan, is an opiate inhibitor that can stop an overdose as it is occurring. The law authorized police officers, firefighters, medical services personnel, as well as some family members of opiate users, to carry and administer the drug.
“It’s been humbling to be part of the policy portion of the solution,” Gideon said in a press release. “To me, the heroes are the people at this conference, the ones who work on the front lines every day. They are the ones who inspire the lawmakers to keep fighting and who help us understand that addiction is a problem that can strike any Maine family.”
Prior to LD 1686, a physician could prescribe naloxone to a drug user — including prescribed pain medications and illegal drugs — and that person was permitted to carry and administer the drug on themselves.
Gideon was alerted to the increasing number of preventable opiate overdoserelated deaths by Freeport resident Neil Fishman, whose father, Jack Fishman, helped develop naloxone when his stepson died of a heroin overdose.
State stats
According to a January report from the Maine Attorney General’s office, there were 163 drug induced deaths in Maine in 2012. Of those, 28 were as a result of a heroin overdose, up from seven in 2011.
Statewide the number of people who received outpatient medical attention for opiate overdoses increased sharply from 19,739 in 2006 to 35,950 in 2009, according to the most recently available Maine Health Data Organization records.
In comparison, the number of people who received outpatient treatment for alcohol overdoses remained fairly level, ranging from 15,718 in 2006 to 15,770 in 2009.
“I can’t tell you how vital the timely administration of this drug is to saving lives,” Gideon said in a February interview with The Times Record. “The problem is, if that person is experiencing an overdose, they won’t be able to administer the drug themselves, and technically no one else is allowed to administer it.”
The bill passed the House on April 16 with 142 votes in favor of, nine absent and none opposed, and the Senate with 35 votes in favor of and none opposed, and passed into law without Gov. Paul LePage’s signature on April 29.
Rep. Ann Dorney, D-Norridgewock, who co-sponsored the bill, was also honored at the conference with a Harm Reduction Hero award.
Dorney was the lead sponsor of a bill vetoed by Le- Page in June 2013 that would have granted immunity for prescribing and dispensing intranasal naloxone kits.
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