Comment: Please stop calling them overdoses — they are poisonings

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These deaths are poisonings, yet we still call them overdoses

My heart aches for the family of ­Sidney McIntyre-Starko and the ­families of more than 14,000 other people killed by our toxic, unregulated drug supply since the public health emergency was declared eight years ago.Our 30-year-old son, Jonah, was killed by fentanyl last November. He lived with mental illness and sometimes used alcohol and cocaine for relief.

The frequent use of the word “overdose” by politicians, the media and others to describe deaths due to fentanyl poisoning is inaccurate and misleading and distracts from the real issue, which is our highly toxic unregulated drug supply. If I opened a bottle of wine and died after a few sips because there was some fentanyl hidden in it, nobody would call it an overdose. It would be called a poisoning.

Naloxone education and training should be expanded, and naloxone should be readily available on campuses and everywhere else. However, relying on naloxone is cutting it too close.

 

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