Naloxone for administration by peers in cases of heroin overdose

Lenton, Simon R; Dietze, Paul M; Degenhardt, Louisa; Darke, Shane; Butler, Tony G

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2009.tb02891.x

Topics

To the Editor: We wish to call for the removal of scheduling and legislative barriers in Australia that prevent easy access to naloxone for administration by peers to people suffering from a heroin overdose.

1 National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA.
2 Burnet Institute, Monash Institute of Health Services Research, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC.
3 National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW.

Correspondence: s.lenton@curtin.edu.au

Competing interests:

Louisa Degenhardt has received an untied educational grant from Reckitt Benckiser to investigate the diversion and injection of buprenorphine. No funder had any input to this letter.

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