Since 2010, the City of Copenhagen has trained 120 Danish heroin users in the use of so-called naloxonkit. The kit contains the nasal substance naloxone which highlights the difficulty in breathing of the person who received an overdose.
– Some thought that more people would start to abuse, and that those who take heroin would increase their doses. But the program raises awareness and many take smaller doses now, says Marian Jørgensen, nurse and coordinator of the project Red Life.
Police officers, social workers and relatives have passed the training and courses are in the pipeline for staff and prisoners. In Denmark, the so-called harm reduction – to improve conditions for those who use drugs – practice since long. On the other side of the Sound, the situation is different.
– Every effort was not primarily aimed at abstinence awakens resistance in Sweden, says Torkel Richert, a doctoral student at Malmö University.
In his doctoral thesis, he has interviewed 35 patients at syringe exchange in Malmö about their experience of overdoses.
– Heroin users are an important resource. They often take drugs together, and they want to help each other if there is opportunity.
He thinks that the Swedish health care also should distribute naloxone. Even the Swedish brukarföreningen press, but the response from politicians has been cool.
But one who has studied the Danish example of some interest is Anders Åkesson (MP), Skåne Regional Council with responsibility for drug and substance abuse issues. He will highlight the issue of a trial project with naloxone in Skåne.
– We have an obligation to provide care at all times. Is there a product to market, we will use it, says Anders Åkesson, but adds:
– My vision is still a drug free society.
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