New Brunswick’s latest numbers are out and they show more naloxone is being used, and being dispensed to the public, than ever before.
The department of Public Health released its quarterly report, Opioid Related Harms in New Brunswick: Deaths, Overdoses and Take Home Naloxone Kits.
The report, in part, credits a dispensing machine installed outside of Ensemble Moncton late last year with the surge. The machine dispenses tools to make drug use safer by giving tools like clean syringes, crack and meth pipes, condoms and naloxone kits.
Between 2018 and 2020 the number of kits dispensed in Moncton increased nearly tenfold from 28 to 253.
Debby Warren, executive director of Ensemble Moncton said she purchased the machine because COVID restrictions decreased the access the organization had to its clients.
Now, everything it has to offer is available 24 hours a day for free. Warren said 65 per cent of the people who use the machine do so when the office is closed.
“Drug use is not just done during business office hours,” she said.
