Hospital discharges for marijuana dependence over time in Colorado

Aims:Opioid-related overdose is a leading cause of death in the United States. Since the 1990s, one response to increased overdose has been the distribution of naloxone, an opioid antagonist, to drug users and those in their immediate social circles. By 2010, at least 188 organizations were distributing naloxone to drug users in the United States, and collectively reported training at least 53,000 lay individuals to use naloxone, leading to at least 10,000 successful overdose reversals. In California, programs distributing naloxone exist in 14 of the state’s 58 counties, allowing exploration of the impact of such programs on rates of over-dose death. Methods: To assess the impact of naloxone programs on accidental overdose deaths in California over an 11 year period, we fit four Poisson generalized linear mixed models, employing four different offset terms: all accidental poison deaths; all accidental deaths; all deaths; and population per county per year. Results: The overall effect of naloxone distribution was statistically significant for accidental overdose deaths as a proportion of all deaths (p=0008),with a significant effect for intervention×year (p=0002), indicating that naloxone programs are associated with reductions in the rate at which overdose deaths grow as a proportion of all deaths. The overall effect of the intervention was also statistically significant for accidental overdose deaths as a proportion of county population (pu003c0001), with a significant effect for intervention x year (pu003c0001), indicating that naloxone programs are associatedwith reductions in the rate atwhich overdose deaths grow as a proportion of county population. Conclusions: Our analysis provides support for the argument that distributing naloxone to active drug users and those around them reduces deaths. Financial support: NIH/NIDA 5K01DA032443 CTRI Catalyst grant 8184, funded by NIH/NCATS UL1TR000100 NIH/NIDA K01DA031031.