This week, OSI grantee, Dr. Susan Sherman, a professor in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, spoke with WYPR’s Sheilah Kast about her research into fentanyl testing.
Listen to the full podcast here.
The synthetic opioid fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, and fentanyl-laced heroin has become the primary cause of the rapid increase in opioid-related deaths. Often users are not aware that it, or any one of its equivalents, including carfentanyl, has been added to the drugs they’re using, putting them at increased risk.
Sherman and a group of researchers from the Bloomberg School and Brown University have recently published new information about low-cost test strips which can detect the presence of fentanyl.
OSI-Baltimore’s Drug Addiction Treatment Program has been working with Sherman, as well as Sarah Evans, a senior program officer with Open Society Foundation’s Public Health Program to examine the idea of opening a safe injection site in Baltimore.
