Over the past two years, San Francisco General Hospital has actively tried to limit the number of emergency room visits and public appearances by meth users by providing them with an antipsychotic drug called olanzapine, which has been called “the next Narcan” for stimulant addiction.
There has been much debate about the role of fentanyl in San Francisco’s overdose crisis in recent years, and rightly so, as 80% of fatal overdose victims in the city last year had used fentanyl. But methamphetamine is still the drug that lands users in emergency rooms more often than other narcotics. According to a recent research paper published in the International Journal of Drug Policy47% of visits to the SF General Hospital psychiatric emergency room “were related to methamphetamine use.”
The same study noted that the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) has begun giving so-called “methamphetamine assist packs,” also known as “chill packs,” to visitors who repeatedly use meth. The Chronicle this week is examining the effectiveness of “chill packs” on meth users — these “chill packs” are actually four doses of an antipsychotic drug called olanzapine (known commercially as Zyprexa), which is normally used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The SFDPH, which has apparently been distributing the drug to meth users for about two years, declined to comment on the Chronicle article. But the International Journal of Drug Policy The study’s lead author, Dr. Phillip Coffin of SFDPH, called olanzapine “the next Narcan” for treating the effects of meth addiction.
The study found that emergency department visits decreased by 32% among those who received the chill packs. The authors concluded that “methamphetamine assist packs were associated with fewer psychiatric emergency department visits in the six months following receipt and represent a promising intervention for the treatment of acute psychiatric toxicity of methamphetamine.”
In some ways, this was not a proper study. There was no control group, no placebos, and no interviews with patients about their use of the pills. Dr. Coffin has stated publicly that he would like to conduct proper clinical trials on this topic in the near future.
Related: So-called “speedball” mixtures of fentanyl and stimulants are now responsible for most overdose deaths in San Francisco (SFist)
Image: It’s raining (Discussion) via Wikimedia Commons
