Bergen showed itself from its most beautiful side with brilliant sunshine when 450 participants from 18 countries attended Overdosekonferansen last week. Each year, approximately 300 people die of overdoses in Norway, which is a very high number, also in an international perspective. Because Bergen, together with Oslo, has the largest proportion of overdoses and overdose deaths in Norway, the conference was held there. Substance abuse and overdoses are topics that are frequently discussed in the local community in Bergen and the conference committee therefor wanted to focus on the prevention of overdoses.
International Overdose Awareness Day
August 31st is the International Overdose Awareness Day. In Norway the day has been given the title "Remembering the deceased - preventing new deaths." The first day of the conference held on this day and the theme was prevention of overdoses. The conference was opened with a video greeting from the Minster of Health Mr. Bent Høie. During the day we were presented with the Norwegian overdose reality, trends in drug overdoses, The National Overdose Strategy from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, and Kari Sundby gave a voice to the relatives who have lost a family member to an overdose. The most powerful moments from the day however, were the five films shown in which multiple users and their families shared stories from their lives.
Open drug scenes
The parallel sessions also shared exciting topics and discussions workshops also; both OMT and the various actions in the overdose strategy were presented, and we had an international session which talked of the overdose situation in Denmark, Sweden and USA. Gaining the most heated discussions was the session about the situation in the various cities in Norway, where a user organisation representative talked about challenges for users after the closure of the Nygård park in Bergen city.
Marking the International Overdose Awareness Day
After the conference's first day all the participant were invited to a marking of the International Overdose Awareness Day at Festplassen in Bergen, organized by the City of Bergen in cooperation with local user organizations. By marking the International Overdose Awareness Day there the aim is to focus on the high overdose numbers, honoring the deceased and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the relatives. The aim is also to disseminate information about how to prevent new overdose deaths.
The antidote naloxone
The second day of the conference, ThINCBergen, was devoted to an international conference on research into the antidote Naloxone - an antidote to opioid overdoses (heroin / methadone). In Norway, the use of naloxone nasal spray to save friends lives is one of the actions of National Overdose Strategy from the Norwegian directorate of Health. The day opened with a powerful film with user representative Kim Jørgen Arnetvedt, who talked about when he rescued a friend from overdose using naloxone nasal spray.
This is the first time an international conference is held on this theme, and there were contributions from several countries including the US, Canada, Scotland, Spain and Georgia, as well as representative from both the EMCDDA and UNODC. The conference ended with a panel discussion in which several of the plenary speakers participated together with Arild Knutsen from FHN, a Norwegian user organization.
The conference also awarded a prize for best poster to the Scottish Drugs Forum.
Poto: Julie Nybakk Kvaal
The conference was arranged by SERAF, City of Bergen, the Norwegian Directorate of Health and the Research Council of Norway in collaboration with proLAR, Bergen Clinics, Helse Bergen, SIRUS and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.