Each August, SAMHSA observes Overdose Awareness Week (August 27 to September 2, 2023) and International Overdose Awareness Day (August 31, 2023) to remember the individuals, families and communities affected by overdose dose. According to the latest provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 110,000 lives were lost to overdoses in the 12 months ending in March 2023, with fentanyl and other synthetic opioids as the main drivers of these deaths. Adding to the challenge of increasing fentanyl overdoses is its appearance xylazinea non-opioid sedative, increasingly mixed with fentanyl in the illicit drug supply.
Too many lives have been taken and too many people have been personally affected by overdose. Overdose can be attributed to many factors. For example, it can happen when a person uses a substance that is contaminated with very strong opioids or other drugs, or when the person misunderstands the dose of the drug they are taking. Regardless of the cause, overdose can have devastating, long-lasting effects on our communities – but we also know that overdoses are preventable. To address the overdose crisis, the Department of Health and Human Services developed the Overdose Prevention Strategy with four main pillars:
Primary Prevention – These strategies promote scalable, multidisciplinary prevention activities, ranging from population-level strategies to targeted interventions aimed at high-risk individuals. These activities directly engage health and human service providers and facilitate interdisciplinary prevention collaboration to address key risk and protective factors.
Damage Reduction – Evidence-based harm reduction strategies minimize the negative consequences of drug use. These activities further expand access to harm reduction interventions such as opioid overdose reversal drugs and fentanyl and xylazine test strips and better integrate harm reduction into specialist and general medical care.
Evidence-based therapy – These strategies focus on reducing barriers to accessing the most effective treatments, including opioid use disorder medications, using motivational and cultural enhancements to encourage those who may be reluctant, promoting strategies to improve engagement, and of maintaining and continuing to develop new therapeutic approaches.
Recovery support – These strategies recognize that treatment alone may not be sufficient to support long-term recovery. Despite the proven benefits of recovery support services — such as peer support, employment and housing services — several challenges hinder their availability and adoption. Enhancing the coverage and integration of recovery support services is vital to promoting access to and use of these services. Strengthening the recovery support services workforce is also essential to promote access and quality.
Substance use and overdose prevention is one of SAMHSA’s top priorities highlighted in the new SAMHSA Strategic Plan 2023-2026. SAMHSA works to address the overdose crisis by providing technical assistance, thought leadership and collaboration with communities and by funding multiple complementary grant programs. These efforts focus on preventing opioid and substance use in the first place, increasing access to opioid use disorder medications, supporting harm reduction services, and improving access to treatment and recovery support services. Some of these programs include Medication-Assisted Treatment – Prescription Drug and Opioid Addiction, Harm Reduction, Improving Access to Overdose Treatment, and First Responders – Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act.
As we celebrate Overdose Awareness Week and International Overdose Awareness Day, we know there is hope. This requires a collaborative effort, and SAMHSA remains committed to being at the forefront of providing life-saving information and resources to the public, health care providers and other community partners. The following are resources that SAMHSA will be releasing soon to help communities address these challenges:
- Opioid Overdose Reduction Continuum of Care Approach (ORCCA) practice guide. This Guide includes a menu of evidence-based strategies to reduce opioid overdose deaths. The ORCCA Guide has three areas of focus: opioid overdose education and drug distribution, opioid use disorder drug treatment, and safer opioid prescribing and disposal.
- A practical guide to engaging community coalitions to reduce opioid overdose deaths. This provides guidance for building and sustaining community coalitions focused on the opioid crisis, as well as approaches for evaluating how well coalitions are working.
- The final Harm Reduction Framework will incorporate public feedback and provide a roadmap of best practices, principles and pillars that each entity can apply to their work.
Our efforts at SAMHSA are pursued through a shared collective vision and collaboration with other federal, state and community partners. This week, the CDC is releasing one Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report about the growing role counterfeit pills containing illegal fentanyl and other synthetic opioids are playing in the overdose crisis.
Every community across our country has been affected by the overdose crisis. And behind all the statistics are families, friends and communities that will be changed forever. Everyone has a role to play, and observing Overdose Awareness Week and International Overdose Awareness Day provide an important opportunity to remember those who have been lost and recommit ourselves to doing all we can to prevent substance use and overdose.
