News: Connect App Report

Nathan: 00:00:00

Welcome everybody to a recovery machine.

Nathan: 00:00:04

I'm Nathan joined, as always by my co-host.

Nathan: 00:00:07

Corey, how are you doing, Corey?

Corey: 00:00:09

Hey, Nathan.

Corey: 00:00:09

I'm pretty good.

Corey: 00:00:10

It's Friday afternoon, I believe.

Corey: 00:00:12

Little bit.

Corey: 00:00:13

I think it's congested.

Corey: 00:00:14

A little bit tired.

Corey: 00:00:15

Mm-hmm.

Corey: 00:00:16

But looking forward to chatting with you about a couple of things and uh, kind

Corey: 00:00:20

of getting back to it for the new year.

Corey: 00:00:21

But we're both feeling a little bit rough.

Corey: 00:00:24

There's a lot of bugs going.

Nathan: 00:00:25

There is.

Nathan: 00:00:26

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:00:27

And I had a pretty busy day and, uh, had a long drive involved in there too.

Nathan: 00:00:31

But yeah, it, uh, it's good to kind of get set up here again and, uh,

Nathan: 00:00:36

look at some of the news articles and kind of take a look at some

Nathan: 00:00:40

things we haven't looked at before.

Nathan: 00:00:41

And yeah, maybe talk a little bit of.

Nathan: 00:00:44

drug related or drug policy related philosophy, that kind of thing.

Nathan: 00:00:48

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:00:49

. But we'll see how far we get, I guess.

Nathan: 00:00:50

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:00:51

Uh, we wanted to start with, uh, something that you had mentioned.

Nathan: 00:00:55

Was it last night or a couple days ago?

Corey: 00:00:59

Yeah, a couple of days ago.

Corey: 00:01:00

This came up in my, actually, it was my credit to my sister Kate for, for passing

Corey: 00:01:05

this on to me, uh, credit where it.

Corey: 00:01:08

It's the, uh, the Connect app.

Corey: 00:01:10

This is a app that was put forward by the, it sounds like it was a collaboration

Corey: 00:01:15

between the provincial government, the Minister, ministry of Mental Health and

Corey: 00:01:18

Addictions, provincial Health Services Agency, and I was gonna say BC Ambulance

Corey: 00:01:23

Service, or e you know, provincial, e h s.

Corey: 00:01:27

So there's a, a, a collaboration that is, that has gone down to make

Corey: 00:01:30

this app for drug users as sort of a one-stop, one-stop shop for services

Corey: 00:01:36

and also for some potential lifesaving, um, features in there as well.

Corey: 00:01:40

So,

Nathan: 00:01:41

Right.

Nathan: 00:01:41

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:01:42

I, I downloaded it to take a look, and I noticed there's quite a few

Nathan: 00:01:45

different things going on in there.

Nathan: 00:01:46

It's a, I guess, a, an app that was designed in BC in part by Lifeguard

Nathan: 00:01:52

Digital Health, and then, uh, the other services you mentioned there.

Nathan: 00:01:56

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:01:57

. , can you explain to people kind of the basics of how, how it works?

Nathan: 00:02:01

Because there's a few of these apps out here, but I think this

Nathan: 00:02:03

one is sort of four BC right?

Corey: 00:02:05

It's four bc.

Corey: 00:02:07

It's very straightforward.

Corey: 00:02:08

So first of all, we are not, this is not a, uh, a funded or

Corey: 00:02:11

sponsored conversation we're having.

Corey: 00:02:13

It's just in the news, and it applies to the whole, um, harbor harm

Corey: 00:02:18

reduction conversation in our province.

Corey: 00:02:20

So the app is pretty straight.

Corey: 00:02:23

. It features a couple of like one-touch resources if you are

Corey: 00:02:26

in a crisis or need to have a conversation about your mental health.

Corey: 00:02:30

Um, there's a suicide hotline, like one touch and it connects

Corey: 00:02:33

you to the suicide hotline.

Corey: 00:02:35

And then also has some, some information about where to find Naloxone, um,

Corey: 00:02:39

where to find counseling resources, um, where to find other addiction and

Corey: 00:02:44

mental health supports in your area.

Corey: 00:02:45

You can, you know, search by area within the province and.

Corey: 00:02:49

Probably the most lifesaving or important feature of the app is the the use alone

Corey: 00:02:54

timer First, were you familiar with that term before seeing this app, Nathan?

Corey: 00:02:58

The use alone timer.

Nathan: 00:03:00

No, I, I, I didn't know anything about it.

Nathan: 00:03:03

And, uh, it's, I mean, it's a clever idea for sure.

Nathan: 00:03:07

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:03:07

, basically you alert the app that you're going to be using alone.

Nathan: 00:03:12

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:03:13

, and you take a dose of whatever you're.

Nathan: 00:03:15

Drug of choice is, and then I think a timer starts, so you have 50 seconds,

Nathan: 00:03:21

I believe it is, with this one to, uh, before an alarm goes off, and

Nathan: 00:03:25

that gets increasingly louder, uh, until I think the 75 second mark.

Nathan: 00:03:29

And if you haven't acknowledged the app by that time, then it automatically

Nathan: 00:03:33

places a text to voice called to 9 1 1.

Nathan: 00:03:36

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:03:37

It's a good idea, right?

Nathan: 00:03:38

I mean, uh, whoever came up with that, it's a, it, it's a very straightforward

Nathan: 00:03:42

way of potentially saving some lives and it looks like it has saved some lives.

Nathan: 00:03:46

I got, uh, I just quickly looked online there and it said, uh, since

Nathan: 00:03:50

May, 2022, it's been credited with 45 lives saved, just this little.

Nathan: 00:03:57

This particular app here.

Nathan: 00:03:58

So

Nathan: 00:03:59

yeah,

Corey: 00:03:59

that's significant.

Corey: 00:04:00

And if you think about it, how, you know, what would be more interesting

Corey: 00:04:04

and more significant is just how many people are actually having close calls

Corey: 00:04:08

or maybe they are just being maybe more aware of, of how they, they practice

Corey: 00:04:13

their drug use in, in terms of like how they feel immediately after.

Corey: 00:04:16

Or maybe they, it's kind of giving them a nudge to not.

Corey: 00:04:19

alone.

Corey: 00:04:20

Mm-hmm.

Corey: 00:04:20

, um, and changing some of the, the behavior there.

Corey: 00:04:23

So there is the, there, to me, the que the, the question is like, depending

Corey: 00:04:28

on your method of delivery, it'll have a different, different speed of

Corey: 00:04:32

onset, the action of the, of the drug.

Corey: 00:04:34

Right?

Corey: 00:04:34

So you can't extend that timer if you're feeling okay, or you, you're,

Corey: 00:04:39

maybe you're wondering if you're feeling okay, you can extend it.

Corey: 00:04:42

I think another minute and it will continue on before ambulance is

Nathan: 00:04:46

called.

Nathan: 00:04:46

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:04:47

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:04:48

I mean it, just looking at it, I mean, there is, there's a whole, I don't know,

Nathan: 00:04:52

I think I, I saw maybe just on the, on the Google Play site there looked like

Nathan: 00:04:57

there's maybe eight or 10 of these that are, that are being used actively around

Nathan: 00:05:02

the world under different names, but they all seem to be designed with IV use.

Nathan: 00:05:07

in mind, it would be very difficult to use.

Nathan: 00:05:11

I think if it was in the case of somebody who's maybe using something

Nathan: 00:05:15

like Hydromorph recreationally, only they're doing it either

Nathan: 00:05:18

intranasally or um, orally.

Nathan: 00:05:20

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:05:21

and there's, I mean, I've been witness to it, overdose when it was a person

Nathan: 00:05:26

who was using it for a migraine and just was to, they were also taking

Nathan: 00:05:31

benzodiazepines and it ended up being a situation where they lost track of their.

Nathan: 00:05:36

in that case, obviously a timer's not gonna really help.

Nathan: 00:05:40

I think most of these are designed with, uh, probably, uh, fentanyl would

Nathan: 00:05:44

be the, the target that they're Yeah.

Nathan: 00:05:46

Focused on.

Nathan: 00:05:47

And IV fentanyl would be the, the route.

Nathan: 00:05:50

Yeah, absolutely.

Corey: 00:05:52

Um, you know, there's also instructions on here for C P R, there's

Corey: 00:05:55

instructions on here for Naloxone.

Corey: 00:05:57

Mm-hmm.

Corey: 00:05:57

, there's some, you know, quick sort of reference guide of dos

Corey: 00:06:00

and don'ts if you encounter.

Corey: 00:06:02

So it's a, it's a, a cool idea for family members or people who

Corey: 00:06:06

are living with individuals who use fentanyl or, or any kind of,

Corey: 00:06:10

um, opioid, recreationally, family members, roommates, that kind of thing.

Nathan: 00:06:14

Yeah, it might even be, you know, I was talking with somebody

Nathan: 00:06:18

just a couple days ago about how many high profile opiate overdose deaths

Nathan: 00:06:24

have been these people that it was really shocking to the community

Nathan: 00:06:27

and nobody knew that this individual had a, uh, chronic opioid habit.

Nathan: 00:06:32

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:06:32

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:06:33

Not even their family, you know?

Nathan: 00:06:35

And, I've been seeing that.

Nathan: 00:06:37

I mean, I remember the first one.

Nathan: 00:06:39

There was a, I'm not gonna say who, but it was a high profile, uh, guy in,

Nathan: 00:06:44

in cams there that was a real shock to the community because he just was

Nathan: 00:06:48

a, uh, he was a, a, a really, uh, prominent figure and, and well liked.

Nathan: 00:06:53

And he, you know, he suit and tie every day type of guy.

Nathan: 00:06:56

and, uh, he was, you know, this was early on in the, uh, I think around 2017, 2016

Nathan: 00:07:02

or whatever, but his family was shocked.

Nathan: 00:07:05

But this had been, you know, once they figured out what was going on, it

Nathan: 00:07:07

had been going on for quite a while.

Nathan: 00:07:09

And I, you know, obviously because of, uh, Especially if you've got a

Nathan: 00:07:14

high profile job, it's in your best interest to keep that under wraps.

Nathan: 00:07:19

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:07:20

. And unfortunately, that of course, puts you at risk.

Nathan: 00:07:23

So maybe the thing is, everybody should be a little more aware, ever since I had that

Nathan: 00:07:29

experience where, uh, I, I just about lost a friend and thank God the, the ambulance

Nathan: 00:07:34

was there, uh, able to get their time.

Nathan: 00:07:36

But now I always have a Naloxone kit wherever I, you know, I, I keep it at

Nathan: 00:07:41

home and I try and bring it with me too.

Nathan: 00:07:43

I would encourage everybody at this point to, you know, try

Nathan: 00:07:46

and at least have a kid at home.

Nathan: 00:07:48

You know, you don't know, like, it could be you're having company over and all of

Nathan: 00:07:53

a sudden you've got somebody who's mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:07:55

, you know, know the signs too, because I like, are you familiar

Nathan: 00:07:58

with the term death rattle?

Nathan: 00:08:00

Yeah, of course.

Nathan: 00:08:01

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:08:01

That is a, a, a very strange sound, a gurgling sound that people make when

Nathan: 00:08:07

they're starting to b Basically, the respiratory system is shutting down.

Nathan: 00:08:11

, and you'll know it when you hear it, but it's, I had even been exposed to, um, I,

Nathan: 00:08:18

I, I believe we watched some sort of video on it, uh, back in, uh, university and

Nathan: 00:08:23

it still took me like at least a minute.

Nathan: 00:08:26

I was like, it triggered something in me, but I was like, what is that?

Nathan: 00:08:31

And cuz uh, this person was a couple rooms over for, from where I was and I couldn't.

Nathan: 00:08:37

I sounded weird, but it didn't trigger anything.

Nathan: 00:08:40

And then finally after about a minute it snapped and I was like,

Nathan: 00:08:42

holy shit, that's a death rattle.

Nathan: 00:08:44

And I run out there and you know, blue lips and everything.

Nathan: 00:08:47

Right.

Nathan: 00:08:48

Um, so just, you know, the fact that this app has that kind of information

Nathan: 00:08:54

on there, what to look out for, um, I think we're at the point here where,

Nathan: 00:08:59

you know, we've lost enough people and.

Nathan: 00:09:03

, everybody is fairly aware that it's not just the stereotypical person on

Nathan: 00:09:09

the street, the addict person box, that they keep the idea of somebody

Nathan: 00:09:14

who's got that kind of problem in.

Nathan: 00:09:15

Yeah, but we know that's not true.

Nathan: 00:09:17

So.

Nathan: 00:09:18

I would encourage everybody to at least kind of, you know, spend, I

Nathan: 00:09:22

don't know, a minute, go online, look at, uh, look at what you can

Nathan: 00:09:26

do and, uh, get a lot if you can.

Nathan: 00:09:28

Even if you check out this app, actually, I think it's got information

Nathan: 00:09:31

for how to get, uh, Naloxone kits for your business, how to get Naloxone.

Nathan: 00:09:35

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:09:35

Kit sent to you.

Nathan: 00:09:36

Um, so yeah, lots of information there.

Nathan: 00:09:40

The

Corey: 00:09:40

other thought I was just having, Nathan, was that we were talking right

Corey: 00:09:43

before we started to record about, you know, is, is the fact that it requires a

Corey: 00:09:47

cell phone with data and that can download apps and how much of a barrier is that?

Corey: 00:09:53

And, and we don't know how much of the population has, has a cell phone

Corey: 00:09:56

and how much of the population of the people experiencing homelessness,

Corey: 00:10:00

how many of of them have cell phones, presumably, some do, presumably some.

Corey: 00:10:05

But I, I wonder if there's a, an could be an ability and, and for any of our

Corey: 00:10:09

listeners who are of an engineering mindset or something like that, is

Corey: 00:10:13

there a way to that It could be like a, you know, the Lifelines or life alert

Corey: 00:10:17

that you see, um, you know, seniors wearing at home where you could hit a

Corey: 00:10:21

button or where it could be just like a, a little thing you wear around your

Corey: 00:10:25

neck where you hit a, like, like the app where, you know, you take your

Corey: 00:10:29

dose and you press start, and if you haven't canceled it in a minute, it, it.

Corey: 00:10:34

Trigger a call to eh hs.

Corey: 00:10:36

I wonder if that could be simplified out of an app on a, on a

Corey: 00:10:40

smartphone into just like a little, little disc that you wear around

Nathan: 00:10:43

your neck.

Nathan: 00:10:44

It should be able to, because you don't need data for an emergency call.

Nathan: 00:10:49

No, and I don't know, like remember back in the nineties we used to have pagers and

Nathan: 00:10:56

that technology is, uh, pretty straightforward, very cheap,

Nathan: 00:11:00

and probably tiny at this point.

Nathan: 00:11:03

So you'd think you could, you could set up something like that

Nathan: 00:11:06

just based on, uh, like, uh, the, the Life Alert system for seniors.

Nathan: 00:11:11

Why can't you do that?

Nathan: 00:11:13

Press the thi, you know, press a button, take your dose, and

Nathan: 00:11:17

then it's gonna go off again.

Nathan: 00:11:18

Same as this, if you don't hit it again.

Nathan: 00:11:20

Same story.

Nathan: 00:11:21

Yeah, that's an interesting point because, I don't see, like you would

Nathan: 00:11:26

expect with the number of people that are using drugs in this province.

Nathan: 00:11:30

Uh, well, it's the number of people using drugs all over

Nathan: 00:11:33

the world at any given time.

Nathan: 00:11:34

But the, but the number of people in danger from toxic drugs, uh,

Nathan: 00:11:39

is higher than it's ever been before in this province anyway.

Nathan: 00:11:42

So you'd think there'd be more people that have downloaded this, but it could

Nathan: 00:11:49

be that people aren't aware of the good, uh, good Samaritan Act either.

Nathan: 00:11:54

, and if you're not aware of that, act, it, it's basically something

Nathan: 00:11:57

that they came up with a while ago.

Nathan: 00:11:59

I think it was earlier on in the drug crisis.

Nathan: 00:12:03

And, uh, it was because people were dying because they're afraid of

Nathan: 00:12:06

police showing up and, uh, you know, possession charges and stuff like that.

Nathan: 00:12:10

So they passed an act called the Good Samaritan Act that prevents

Nathan: 00:12:15

you from any legal repercussions associated with a medical emergency.

Nathan: 00:12:20

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:12:21

secondary to drug use.

Nathan: 00:12:23

So it's good to know because I, I think there's probably lots of young

Nathan: 00:12:27

people out there who, you know, would be hesitant to, to make that call.

Nathan: 00:12:32

Especially.

Nathan: 00:12:33

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:12:33

Well even, uh, I've seen young people nearly die because they didn't want their

Nathan: 00:12:38

parents to find out, let alone the police.

Corey: 00:12:40

Yeah, and I mean the, the, you, you do have to put in the information here.

Corey: 00:12:45

Like you're, there is a obvious compromise to privacy just by virtue of the fact that

Corey: 00:12:49

if you don't, don't hit cancel on the, on the timer that eh HS is gonna be called.

Corey: 00:12:55

But to me, I don't think that should be a, should be a, a barrier to people using it.

Nathan: 00:13:01

Well, it's a triage thing, right?

Nathan: 00:13:03

Yeah.

Nathan: 00:13:03

I mean, Jesus here we're supposed to be decriminalized now.

Nathan: 00:13:09

We'll have to take a look at the date, but by the end of this month, d crim

Nathan: 00:13:12

is supposed to be here in BC and if we do have real decrim of, uh, all

Nathan: 00:13:18

possession of, uh, small quantities of drugs across the board, then

Nathan: 00:13:21

it shouldn't be a problem anyways.

Nathan: 00:13:23

But yeah, unless, of course you're sitting there with five kilos of cocaine or

Nathan: 00:13:27

whatever, but yeah, I don't know if the Good Samaritan Act would protect you then.

Nathan: 00:13:31

No

Nathan: 00:13:33

. Corey: Well, this is good.

Nathan: 00:13:34

I, I think it's a step in the right direct.

Nathan: 00:13:36

It doesn't cover all of the needed bases by any means, but it is a piece

Nathan: 00:13:42

and I, you know, I don't wanna knock it for, I don't wanna knock it for the

Nathan: 00:13:46

fact that it doesn't cover all of the bases that we need in our province,

Nathan: 00:13:49

but it is a good, it is a good step.

Nathan: 00:13:51

And if it's something that's, if it's saved 43 lives already,

Nathan: 00:13:54

that's, that's quite remarkable.

Nathan: 00:13:56

Mm-hmm.

Nathan: 00:13:57

, that's 43.

Nathan: 00:13:57

43 people with loved ones and with potential and with all.

Nathan: 00:14:01

other things going on and, and as we've discussed, like the massive

Nathan: 00:14:05

ripple effect of a loss like that.

Nathan: 00:14:08

Um, so good on them for putting something like this out.

Nathan: 00:14:11

Yeah,

Nathan: 00:14:12

absolutely.

Nathan: 00:14:13

If it saved one life, it was worth putting together.

Nathan: 00:14:15

Yep.

Nathan: 00:14:16

Yeah, we just wanted to mention that, just to give them a boost.

Nathan: 00:14:20

So we'll leave it at that and, uh, if you guys have any questions or comments

Nathan: 00:14:24

that you wanna make about that, or maybe you've got information that,

Nathan: 00:14:27

uh, I mean, we took a cursory look at it, but we didn't go crazy on it, so.

Nathan: 00:14:31

If there's other things that, uh, maybe stats or information that you'd

Nathan: 00:14:35

like to add, please email us and, uh, we'd be happy to hear from you.