US: Growing
danger of children overdosing from opioids
By Kathleen Martin
24 July 2017
On June 23, 10-year-old Alton Banks returned home from the local
swimming pool in Miami, Florida, and became violently ill, vomiting uncontrollably.
His mother Shantell called an ambulance right away, but her son was pronounced
dead only hours later. The autopsy revealed that the child overdosed on heroin
and fentanyl.
Alton Banks was not using opioids, prescription or otherwise, at
the time of his death. The Miami Dade State Attorney released his toxicology
results last week to the public to raise awareness of the opioid crisis. This
crisis is now claiming the lives of children and seeping into aspects of
everyday life for millions of people, whether they are using the drugs or not.
Synthetic opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil are so powerful
that even a few grains of the drugs can result in fatality. Accidentally and
unknowingly coming into contact with the drug, as in the case of Alton Banks,
can be lethal, especially for children, whose tolerance is much lower than
adults. In Miami-Dade County from 2005 to 2015 opioid-related overdoses were
around 100. In 2016 that number more than doubled, with 229 reported. Fentanyl
was detected in 376 overdoses from 2014 to 2016 in the same area.
In Manchester, New Hampshire, a six-year-old has been placed in
the care of a relative after a near-death accidental overdose last week.
Emergency responders used naloxone, or Narcan, to revive the child.
New Hampshire has seen a 191 percent increase in opioid-related
deaths since 2012. In 2016 there were five reported emergency room visits for
opioids in children aged nine and under, and 176 for children aged 10-19,
according to the New Hampshire Drug Monitoring Initiative.
A police lieutenant in Manchester told local news stations, “When
you have a young child, it could be as simple as touching an area on a kitchen
table, or a spoon, or a sink, or a doorknob.”
No arrests have been made in either the Miami or the Manchester
case. It is possible that in both cases the children came into contact with the
drug nowhere near their homes. Instances like these, if the family is accused
of being responsible for the overdose, could result in children being wrongly placed
into the already overcrowded foster care system.
Children who live in neighborhoods with high rates of opioid abuse
could quite easily, like young Alton Banks, come into contact with the deadly
drugs. Narcan is administered in many emergency cases of cardiac arrest.
However, if it is unclear whether a cardiac arrest is happening it may not be
the first choice for emergency medical responders, particularly in the case of
a child, where what might be an overdose would generally be considered an
illness.
The states hardest hit by the opioid crisis are in the
northeastern US. But many large cities, including Miami and San Francisco, have
seen an uptick in opioid overdose deaths. In 2016, opioid-related deaths in
Miami hit 325.
In addition to the very real danger of unknowingly ingesting a
lethal opioid comes the threat of contracting a blood-borne illness—such as
hepatitis or HIV—from accidentally coming into contact with used drug
paraphernalia, including discarded syringes, needles and spoons. Reflective of
the spread of the crisis nationally, states hardest hit such as New Hampshire,
Maine and Massachusetts—as well as large cities like San Francisco—began
tracking found used needles in 2016.
Manchester, where the six-year-old was exposed, recorded 570 used
syringes found in public in 2016 and 247 in the first half of 2017. In March
2016 in San Francisco, more than 2,900 used syringes had been collected for the
year to date; by the same month this year that number had increased to over
13,000.
Needles are often discarded in public places due to fear of
prosecution for possession of drug paraphernalia. In an effort to discourage
users from publicly discarding the hazardous needles, more than 30 states have
implemented needle “exchange programs.” The programs allow a person using
syringes for injection to turn in old needles for new, clean ones at local
hospitals. Some programs have stopped distributing needles to people who do not
have used needles to turn in.
The need for such programs exposes the lack of funding for
rehabilitation programs or research into other medicines as alternatives to the
lethal and highly addictive opioids.
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