Geoff Bathje, Ph.D., core faculty for the Adler University Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, helped organize a survey of the Chicago mayoral candidates about their views on the opioid crisis and harm reduction, which was featured in a Chicago Tribune story. Bathje and other experts discussed how the increasing prevalence of synthetic opioid fentanyl adds urgency to the need for new overdose prevention strategies. The possibility of reducing overdoses by offering alternative treatments in overdose prevention centers is now being considered by mental health specialists.
“If we had overdose prevention sites, we know for sure the (overdose) numbers would be lower than they would be otherwise,” Bathje said.
Read the Chicago Tribune article, “Some Chicago Mayoral Candidates Open to Considering Overdose Prevention Centers, Where Supervised Drug Use Would be Allowed.”