Every year, drug overdoses claim about 2,000 lives – more deaths than from traffic accidents.

“They are a significant public health burden for the country,” David Baxter, project operations manager at CAHMA (Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation and Advocacy) says.

But many of those deaths are preventable: opioid overdose can be treated with the lifesaving medication naloxone.

“It’s really not that difficult to save a person’s life if you get to them and help them in a timely manner,” Mr Baxter said.

International Overdose Awareness Day falls on Monday 31 August, and CAHMA will mark the event this Friday with a barbecue at Veterans Park in Civic. Staff will provide free naloxone and teach people how to use it.

In Australia, many strong opioids are Schedule 8 medications (controlled drugs with a recognised medical use but a high risk of misuse and physical or psychological dependence). They include prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin.

People at particular risk of overdose include those using opioids with other central nervous system depressants such as alcohol, benzodiazepines including Valium or Xanax, GHB or other painkillers; people using drugs again after a period of abstinence, such as coming out of residential treatment or prison, when their tolerance may have fallen; and homeless people.

“The people who die of drug overdoses – this is somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s sister, somebody’s brother, somebody’s mother, somebody’s father,” Mr Baxter said. “They’re missed, they’re loved, they’re people who made a positive contribution to the world around them.

“They may have had issues with drugs. It may have been that they were just really unfortunate that they were experimenting one day, or they may have just taken too many pain meds. It’s really sad how many people have lost their lives to drugs.”

In Canberra alone, five people died from suspected drug overdoses this month, and at least two non-fatal overdoses were reported, ACT Policing said last week.

An opioid overdose can be difficult to recognise because the person may appear to have fallen asleep, Mr Baxter said.

“It’s quite possible for someone to overdose in the middle of the party, and nobody notices until it’s too late because a person who’s overdosing looks a lot like a person who’s sleeping.”

Warning signs include being unable to wake the person; slow or shallow breathing; gasping or snoring sounds; blue lips; and pale or waxy skin.

During an overdose, a person’s muscles and limbs can go slack, and their head can fall forward onto their chest, closing off the top of their windpipe. Their breathing may slow to a standstill, causing hypoxia: although the heart may continue to pump, the blood becomes increasingly starved of oxygen and the body’s organs begin to shut down.

“By the time a person stops breathing altogether, you’ve got to a critical point,” Mr Baxter said. “That person needs help really quickly, because it’s only about a five-minute window after a person stops breathing that the brain dies … you start experiencing serious brain damage.”

If someone cannot be woken up and has difficulty breathing, the first thing to do is ring triple zero, Mr Baxter said. The operator should be told the person is unresponsive and may be suffering an opioid overdose.

CAHMA supplies naloxone as a nasal spray. It is absorbed through the mucous membrane, so the victim does not need to be breathing for it to take effect, and usually begins working within a couple of minutes.

Naloxone temporarily removes opioids from receptors in the central nervous system, but does not remove the drug from the bloodstream. As the naloxone wears off, the person can begin overdosing again and lose consciousness.

“Just because someone’s conscious and breathing again, doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re out of the woods,” Mr Baxter said.

Someone should stay with the patient after an overdose, and an ambulance should always be called even if naloxone has revived them.

Mr Baxter said some illicit drug users were reluctant to call triple zero because they feared police would turn up, question people, search the premises, and make arrests. It was not standard procedure for police to routinely attend overdose incidents, but ambulance crews could call them in to ensure paramedics could work safely, he said.

CAHMA wants ambulance crews to leave naloxone with people who have been revived but do not want to be taken to hospital, as the naloxone at the scene may already have been used, leaving nothing to administer if the person relapses into an overdose after the ambulance leaves.

Naloxone is available free from CAHMA. People in Canberra and Queanbeyan can order up to two boxes through CAHMA’s website after watching a five-minute training video and completing a short quiz. It is also available from pharmacies.

Opioid users’ friends and family should also carry naloxone, Mr Baxter said. It should also be kept in nightclubs’ and music festivals’ first aid kits, because opioids have been found in drugs presented as cocaine, methamphetamine, ketamine, and counterfeit benzodiazepines.

The CAHMA community BBQ barbecue will be held at Veterans Park from 11am to 1.30pm on Friday 28 August.