For Heroin Users Who Overdose

A drug called naloxone can bring heroin users who overdose back from the brink of death.But naloxone is not always available, especially in rural areas. One nonprofit — the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) — is working to change that.If you're an injection drug user in south-central Wisconsin, you may know or have heard of a guy named Jimi, also known as James Reinke. Reinke works for ARCW’s Lifepoint Needle Exchange program, which tries to prevent the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C through shared needles.

Reinke drives a van around all day, meeting users at their preferred location where they swap out their dirty needles for free clean needles and other supplies.Reinke also carries Narcan, a form of naloxone. He hands it out, along with a prescription, and provides training.“Really, the naloxone is just a muscle shot,” says Reinke. “You hit ’em in the shoulder, you hit ’em in the thigh, in the top of the butt. So you can't miss.”

In the event of an overdose naloxone reverses the effects of opiates, like heroin and OxyCodone. At one of Reinke's regular stops, he provides a refill to a woman in her 40s who doesn't want to share her hands free access. But says she's used the drug many times on others — and recently it was used on her.

“I said to my friend ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ and that's all I remember,” she says. “And I guess I turned purple. Narcan saved my life this last week, and I've had five saves in the last year-and-a-half myself.”ARCW started providing naloxone to users in 2005 at its nine locations across the state after a rise in overdoses. Scott Stokes, the group’s prevention services director, says since then thousands of lives have been saved. But the program has its critics.

“A lot of people feel that if [others] are going to use drugs, then they need to suffer the consequences that go along with it,” says Stokes. His response to the critics: “This isn't alcohol, where if you're drinking and driving you lose your license. If you overdose, you die.”

He says they are currently the only source in the state where users can get naloxone — physicians could prescribe it, but they don't. He says without a Good Samaritan Law which would provide immunity to users, many won't call 911 because they're afraid they could face criminal charges.Stokes also says there's another reason for the need for wider distribution: Many ambulances don't carry naloxone. In Wisconsin, only Advanced Life Support level services — those that can start IVs — can legally carry the drug. Madison Fire Department Paramedic Paul Poker says that's a real issue in the suburbs and rural communities with basic level EMTs.

“If you have to wait 15, 20, 25 minutes to get that drug, or wait for them to transport you to the hospital, the chances of long-term affects, whether it's brain damage or something like that, can go up significantly,” says Poker.There is an inhaled version of Narcan that many basic level providers across the country are carrying. The state Department of Health Services — which licenses EMS providers — says that would require additional training and a change in law but that it is under consideration.

 After an American Civil Liberties Union report found police increasingly can track law-abiding drivers’ whereabouts with few restrictions, the group’s Massachusetts branch renewed its calls for lawmakers to impose limits and said the state already may collect such information.

The national report raises concerns about cameras mounted on patrol cars, street signs and overpasses that automatically scan license plates on passing vehicles and check them against databases of stolen cars or people wanted on arrest warrants, among other things.

In the report, the ACLU does not question the use of plate scanners for these purposes, but warned that the devices retain images and details on the time and location of every passing vehicle – including a vast majority of motorists who have done nothing wrong.

Police agencies vary widely in how long they keep such information – anywhere from two days to years or even indefinitely – and in some cases feed it into larger law enforcement databases, according to the report, based on 26,000 pages of documents obtained through public records requests in 38 states and Washington, D.C.

 During my five months in Syria, there's one remark I keep hearing from the rebels: we need ammunition and we need heavy weapons. The makeshift army fighting Bashar al-Assad's troops may be armed with plenty of ancient Kalashnikovs, a steady stream of young men ready to fight and die, and an unshakeable belief that Allah is on their side. But they're facing a regime equipped with Russian-made tanks and fighter jets, a regime that's apparently happy to unleash huge scud missiles and chemical weapons on its own population to keep itself in power.

The rebels and Assad's forces are locked in a particularly sticky, horrendously bloody stalemate; the rebels can hold the front lines but find it almost impossible to advance because they don't have the weapons and ammunition to make a push. The regime is able to fire heavy artillery at the residential neighborhoods held by the rebels, occasionally picking off fighters while simultaneously destroying the homes of ordinary citizens.

 Away from the front lines I found a slightly more professional operation. Three months ago, a local Free Syrian Army commander named Abu Firas realized that his fighters were missing a trick by attacking the regime’s tanks with explosives and leaving them burnt out on the side of the road. Now when the rebels attack a regime checkpoint they try to leave the tanks in one piece so they can bring them over to the other side.

“Now that we are capturing heavy weapons, our fortunes will change,” Abu told me. He explained that some particularly fearless jihadist fighters from Yemen leap onto the regime’s tanks as they're still moving, rip open the doors, and unload their weapons upon the soldiers inside. Brutal and foolhardy, perhaps, but definitely effective, and a method that results in only superficial damage inflicted on the tank.

 The rebels bring their prizes to a mechanic’s workshop opposite Abu Firas’s office, where they're soon fixed up and real time Location system; a bit of welding and a new rebel logo to replace the regime’s and they’re good to go. It was Ramadan when I visited so the mechanic isn't working. As Abu swung the garage doors open open—we're met with the bizarre sight of two camouflaged tanks parked up next to a Toyota pickup truck—he told me he used to work on bulldozers and trucks and was able to teach himself how tanks operate pretty quickly.

After my visit to the war workshop, I heard about another rebel-run battle studio, a factory where fighters are turning out hundreds of weapons every day. The commander in charge is named Ahmad Afesh and he's the leader of Aleppo’s Free Syria Brigade. He got nervous when I first spoke to him—he’d never let a journalist anywhere near the factory before and he was unsure about letting me in, never mind allowing me to take photographs inside.

 After two days of negotiations via Skype and over the phone, he came back with his answer: he'd granting me access on the condition that I don't photograph the outside of the factory or reveal its location. That's a compromise I was perfectly happy to make, so the next day we drove to the factory with the commander.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when they did I found myself in front of a scene resembling a cross between Santa's workshop and a Industrial Revolution–era Britain. Only instead of gift-wrapped toys or steam engine parts, the factory is cluttered with mortar casings and rockets—a Christmas grotto fit for the most battle-ready child you know.