SAMHSA releases toolkit for preventing opioid overdose and overdose-related deaths

"Every overdose death is preventable."

-- Michael Botticelli, Deputy Director of ONDCP

Today, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the Opioid Overdose Toolkit: Facts for Community Members, a resource aimed at reducing the number of deaths resulting from opioid overdose through education for clinicians, patients, communities, first responders, overdose survivors, and family members.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Toolkit "promotes the use of naloxone, a life-saving overdose reversal drug which we believe should be in the patrol cars of every law enforcement professional across the nation. We have lost too many loved ones to overdose, and the deadly disease of addiction has remained for too long in the shadows."

ONDCP's online announcement states that "approximately 100 Americans died from overdose every day in 2010... more than the number who died from either homicides or traffic crashes."

"In response to this public health emergency, the Obama Administration has established a goal to reduce drug-induced deaths by 15 percent by 2015" through overdose prevention, expanding access to treatment, addressing prescription drug abuse, and expanding access to naloxone (ONDCP).

Click here to view ONDCP's full announcement.

Click here to view ONDCP's "Fact Sheet: Preventing, Treating, and Surviving Overdose"

Order a copy of SAMHSA's Opioid Overdose Toolkit.