COLUMBUS, Ohio – The death toll from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids is falling for the first time since the drugs began flooding America’s streets a decade ago. Users and police in this city’s beaten-down Hilltop neighborhood credit another drug flooding the United States: the overdose antidote naloxone.
James “Sleaze” Morgan says naloxone has saved him after overdosing – as many as 20 times in the last several years.
The lifesaving nasal-spray medicine is everywhere in the 10 or more Hilltop “trap” houses where users come to buy and take fentanyl. Distributed free by local officials, supplies are abundant at the house where Sleaze smokes fentanyl and works security in exchange for drugs.
On a recent day, a customer heated up a dose of white fentanyl powder, sucked in the smoke through a short straw, and stopped breathing almost instantly. Sleaze says he grabbed several naloxone canisters and sprayed three doses up the comatose man’s nose, snapping him back to life.
“It’s second nature to me,” says Sleaze, whose nickname is tattooed just above his left eye. “I hit him with three canisters, and he came to.”