PROVIDENCE – One way to address opioid overdoses and deaths may be to examine the relationship with drug users and their dealers, researchers from Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital found.
A study led by a research team from the two hospitals was published recently in the International Journal of Drug Policy. It includes excerpts from conversations with anonymous drug users who were asked about experiences in Rhode Island.
Through surveys and interviews done from 2016 to 2017 with Providence residents who use drugs, researchers found that many users stick to buying drugs from dealers who they know. Further, they were told that many dealers who supplied regular drug users refused to sell substances that they knew contained fentanyl. Some tested their products for the drug.
Fifty-one of the 92 people included in the study described their relationships with drug suppliers, and said they relied on them for fentanyl-free drugs.
The study was co-authored by Jennifer Carroll, a fellow at The Miriam at the time of the research and an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine of Brown University; Dr. Josiah Rich, an infectious disease physician at The Miriam Hospital and co-director of its Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights; and Traci Green, an epidemiologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a faculty member at Brown and Brandeis universities.
“The conventional wisdom that ‘we cannot arrest our way out of this’ is generally well-accepted when we talk about people who are living with a substance use disorder. Our study found that we may be able to save more lives if we apply that logic to people who sell and trade drugs as well,” Carroll said.
She continued, “Our data shows that arresting someone for drug dealing can immediately increase the risk of overdose faced by the people they regularly sell to, who then may have to buy from a dealer with whom they have no relationship. In other words, our data suggest that enhanced criminal justice responses to drug distribution may actually cause harm rather than reducing the risks posed by substance use.”
The work, partially funded by the National Institutes of Health, was also paid for by The Miriam Hospital and the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence on Opioids and Overdoses at Rhode Island Hospital.
