iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/11/2025

My first byline in @latimes.com op-ed! www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 21/11/2025

Come give me a follow over here! www.instagram.com/stephenhrnrp...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 16/11/2025

Welp, nice to see the public opinion finally shifting on this. Some of us didn’t need to see 2 full years of children dying to say something…. I literally had friends/family unfriend me and write nasty notes over this. Wonder where they’re at on this now!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 29/10/2025

Here we go again! Typical dangerous misinformation in this article. The symptoms experienced: “shaky hands, dizziness, and hot flashes.” None of these are symptoms of fentanyl overdose. This article also reinforces myths around Halloween candy fentanyl toward the end.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/10/2025

“In case no one has told you lately, you have value. Your contributions to this world have value. Your life has value. What you do for yourself and the people around you matters.” #overdose #recovery #recover #recovered #drugpolicy #harmreduction #harmreductionsaveslives #harmreductionislove

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/10/2025

Come free-sub to my Substack! substack.com/@stephenhrnr...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 05/10/2025

“Detectives say traffickers are intentionally making fentanyl in candy-like forms to attract children and young adults in an effort to drive addiction.” Drugs attract young adults because drugs are awesome, offer an escape from violent end stage capitalism, fill mental health treatment voids…

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 30/09/2025

Something to keep an eye on — product moving through FDA fast track for “treatment of acute methamphamine intoxication.” Research is funded by NIH/NIDA. Press release is here: www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 30/09/2025

We seem to be getting a new flood of these stories... I searched all the available info — there is no discussion anywhere of the symptoms the officer allegedly experienced and no bodycam footage on any of the news stories. We can safely say that a wet soggy bag of dope is not going to go airborne.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 23/09/2025

No… they didn’t. Fentanyl misinformation is now an international phenomenon. Paging @ryanmarino.bsky.social

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LOCAL
2 state police officers overdose on fentanyl during drug seizure
by: Julian Resendiz
Posted : 5222, 202510163MM
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) - Two state police officers in Chihuahua, Mexico, are recovering in a hospital after becoming ill while conducting a drug seizure.
The two unnamed officers entered a home late in Chihuahua City last week to arrest drug suspects

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 15/09/2025

It’s absolute bullshit to say you can’t help people until they stop using. We can and do work on safety, housing, health, and dignity while people use.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 13/09/2025

We have seen this strategy used before — I shared a while back a cop in Philadelphia doing this (I reported him and never got a response). Countless people on video giving naloxone to people who are awake. This takes it a step further and is absolutely disgusting. sfstandard.com/2025/09/11/s...

News article:

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
News
Fed up with drug users, street vigilantes are wielding Narcan like a weapon'
Online commenters have called the alleged use of Narcan on unsuspecting victims a
"new strategy for moving bums out of your way." Health experts say it could kill.
By David Sjostedt
Published Sep. 11, 2025 • 6:00am

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 07/09/2025

I spent all weekend glued to this book by @equalityalec.bsky.social — it is an ESSENTIAL read for anyone in drug policy or harm reduction spaces. I have learned so much that my brain actually might explode and I have so much work to do now

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 07/09/2025

For the upteenth time — you are NOT having a fentanyl overdose if you feel hot, panicked, drive yourself to the hospital, receive naloxone while awake, get dizzy. If she really felt like she was going to pass out while driving, it’s incredibly irresponsible to continue driving.

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio - A local woman said she narrowly escaped an attempted attack at a gas station after touching a door handle coated in what she believed was fentanyl, leading to her hospitalization for a suspected overdose from skin exposure.
Jess Stonerock detailed the harrowing ordeal in a Facebook post Thursday, describing how she stopped at an Exxon station near the Chillicothe fairgrounds to use the restroom after picking up her sick child from a friend's house. "Once we got into Chillicothe I realized I had to use the restroom asap. So before turning on 207, I decided to just drive half a mile past to the Exxon station by the Chillicothe fairgrounds," Stonerock wrote.
She noticed the station's lights were dimmed but assumed it was still open. After telling her son to lock the doors, she approached the building. "I tried to pull the door, no luck. But I felt 'dirt' on my hands after touching the handle, so I just brushed them off on my pants," she recounted. "My first thought was, 'maybe they have an outside restroom?'

About 10 minutes later, while driving down Route 207, Stonerock began experiencing severe symptoms. "Ten minutes down 207 I started getting hot. I thought it was just my fight or flight senses that had locked in, but I just kept getting hotter, and then dizzier and then I felt like I was gonna pass out right there," she said.
She raced to Adena Hospital. ".
....drug tested by
the doctor in the E.R. and was told fentanyl does not show on their test, only opioids, but he said since I responded so well to the narcan and had the exact symptoms, he was 90% positive it was a fentanyl overdose.
Stonerock was hospitalized and treated with Narcan, sharing photos of her bloody nose, arm rash and other injuries from the episode.
• "We
are home now, terrified but okay physically. God had his hand on us for sure," she added. "Please be aware of your surroundings. I never thought this would happen to me but it did. It can happen to you too."

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 31/08/2025

When politicians show up at your #ioad event… remind them that almost every policy approach to overdose has made it worse and that’s by design.

Remember that when politicians come to your IOAD event that most of the drug policy approaches that have been done in the name of "ending" overdose have just made the problem worse.
1. Drug seizures - claimed to lower drug use, but we know the opposite is true.
2. Criminalization and incarceration - often framed as
"saving people" by locking them up, but this only lowers tolerance and increases overdose risk at reentry. Add to that the barriers of a criminal record-family separation, housing, employment, healthcare-and you set people up for more chaotic use.
3. Coerced, forced, or involuntary treatment - for the same reasons. In the name of "saving people," we statistically increase their risk of overdose.

4. Reducing opioid prescribing - removing regulated opioids created a vacuum filled by fentanyl. This has killed hundreds of thousands and harmed pain patients who are now pushed to the illicit market or toward suicide.
5. Abstinence-based treatment and recovery - people in treatment are still rarely taught about overdose prevention or the risk of returning to use. Talking about it is seen as
"triggering" or "enabling." The result: so many die within weeks or months of discharge.
So what are solutions that could reduce overdose? Harm reductionists have been screaming these ideas from the rooftops for decades. Providing a regulated supply (not just for people with OUD, as is often the pitch of safe supply efforts). Ending criminalization. Opening overdose prevention centers. Getting police out of pain management decisions between a doctor and patient. Removing barriers to medication access, methadone in particular. Improving mental health care. Building a more kind and just society, one that makes it safe for people to use drugs around one another so that overdose can be spotted and reversed.
Anyway... lots to think about. I miss my friends. Let's do better.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 30/08/2025

There is no standard lethal dose of cocaine. Overdose risk depends on many factors… route (snorted, smoked, injected), body weight, tolerance, health status, and what other substances are on board. Someone can die from a few hundred mg while some use multiple grams daily for years without issue.

Article from CNN about drug seizure stating they got enough cocaine to fatally overdose the entire population of Florida

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 30/08/2025

Out with some of the team planting flags in Boston for #ioad - remembering our dead friends and why we are doing this work.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 14/08/2025

We have officially made it to the Buzzfeed-style lists chapter of the fascist takeover!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 11/08/2025

featured by the @adcouncil.bsky.social and @nationalcouncil.bsky.social for Start With Hope campaign — got chance to talk about wellness beyond abstinence and SafeSpot’s greatest strength is we help people feel a sense of value for being themselves. Here is the full ad: youtu.be/Fm1vb-Q6-nU?...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 11/07/2025

Thanks for chatting with me in line at Starbucks @schiff.senate.gov 💪🏼

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 03/07/2025

In case you were wondering what the numbers in parenthesis are - they are called semi-quant results. Here is an explainer.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 03/07/2025

This is from a single sample, sold as fentanyl, from the drug supply in Lynn, MA. This is what it looks like for government to surrender its regulatory power to the market. This is what we are subjecting our friends and family too instead of oxy or heroin. This is a policy CHOICE.

Drug checking sample:

Laboratory Detected Substances Fentanyl (10)
Xylazine (8)
4-ANPP (4)
Lidocaine (4)
BTMPS (Tinuvin 770) (3)
6-Monoacetylmorphine (3)
Ethyl-4-ANPP (2)
Bromazolam (2)
Phenethyl-4-ANPP (trace)
Papaverine (trace)
Medetomidine (trace)
Heroin (trace)
Caffeine (trace)
Cocaine (trace)
Methamphetamine (trace)
Acetaminophen (trace)
Morphine (trace)
Type Community Sample
Date 05/2025
State / Group Massachusetts
Location Lynn

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 28/06/2025

None of these are overdose symptoms. This is panic causing hyperventilation. When you over-breathe, you blow off too much CO₂. First, tingling in your hands and feet, then dizziness/fainting. Your body responds by tightening airways to slow breathing, which feels like you can’t breathe/are choking.

SUFFIELD, Conn. (WFSB) - 5 staff members from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield have been hospitalized after an inmate overdosed.
At around 9:30 a.m., staff of the Walker building, which is a part of the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, responded to the cell of an inmate who was exhibiting signs of apparent overdose.
The responding staff administered a dose of Narcan.
The inmate was revived to the point he could be sent out in an ambulance to a local hospital for further
treatment.
A short time later, 5 staff members reported having symptoms of dizziness, tingling in the extremities, and feeling extremely hot.
They were taken to the hospital for treatment.
Connecticut state police were notified of the incident.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 18/06/2025

The lack of basic medical literacy by the media is really sad.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 10/06/2025

We have a new paper out : “Stigmatizing content about xylazine in web-based news continues to proliferate, highlighting the need for collaborative efforts between the journalistic, medical, and public health sectors to challenge these narratives.” Read here: journals.lww.com/journaladdic...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 29/05/2025

This delivery device looks awfully familiar!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/05/2025

Back in the parade marching days 👨‍🚒

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 04/05/2025

I love getting a care package from @clairezagorski.bsky.social !! Magnets for SafeSpot and stickers.

Fridge magnets that say “using drugs? You are loved! Be safe. Call a friend. 1-800-972-0590. Anonymous and free”

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 02/05/2025

I did this 90s photo shoot for my wife when we got him 🤣

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/04/2025

Had a great time speaking at the #ASAM pre-conference on stimulants for 550 people and hosting a workshop the first day about harm reduction. Good to see us pushing the needle forward on this topic. Thanks for having me and I love all of my friends!

The faculty from the stimulant course being silly

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 20/04/2025

If you’re going to be at #RxSummit this week, go check out this musical benefit! My friends at SHIELD are putting it on. tinyurl.com/Team-KY-Stor...

MUSICAL BENEFIT
SHIELD PRESENTS
A HAPPY HOUR IN SUPPORT OF FIRST RESPONDERS
TO FLOODING IN KENTUCKY
SHIELD
Safety & Health Integration in the Enforcement of Laws on Drugs
ENTRY BY DONATION
TUES. APRIL 22 5-7 PM
ENJOY COMPLIMENTARY NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINKS & APPETIZERS
A CASH BAR WILL BE AVAILABLE
Gaylord Opryland
Convention Center Level O
ROOM: RYMAN STUDIO ABC
SUPPORT WITH YOUR DONATION BELOW
ENTER "SHIELD FUNDRAISER" AS EVENT NAME
SCAN ME
LIVE MUSIC BY
SCOTT T. SMITH
Protecting Those Who Serve
www.shieldtraining.org
https://tinyurl.com/Team-KY-Storm-Relief-Fund

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 07/04/2025

Me attempting to fly while speaking at @brownpublichealth.bsky.social - thanks for having me!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 31/03/2025

Something that is constantly missing from the conversation on drugs: not everyone is suffering. Drugs are pretty awesome. This whole drugs are bad narrative is a bunch of Prohibitionist nonsense. All drugs have purpose, strengths and limitations.

Until this country stops framing all drug use and all overdose as problems of “addiction” and “substance use disorders,” we’ll keep missing the mark on overdose prevention.

Most people who use drugs don’t call it addiction. They don’t see themselves in the narratives pushed by society. It’s only when their use becomes chaotic — usually when someone else gets concerned and slaps a label on it — that those labels even enter the conversation.

They’re not all suffering and waiting to be saved. It’s like we forget (or some of you without lived experience don’t know?) that drugs are pretty awesome. For many people, they stay awesome. For some, it becomes part of their maladaptive coping strategies and contributes to a chaotic life.

I used for four years before anyone noticed. In that time, I got through most of college and won a seat on the village council. Most of my drug use was helpful and made me work harder and do better. Towards the end, I spun out and lost control and things got rough.

The idea of treatment never crossed my mind — until someone else decided I might need it. Being an “addict” or “person in recovery” didn’t become my identity until it was forced on me by others.

Next time you take a sip of wine or drink a beer, imagine we considered all alcohol consumption “alcohol use disorders” or “alcoholism” …. It’s the same thing

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 29/03/2025

Friends in Providence and at Brown University … come hang!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 26/03/2025

Rolling back opioid prescribing restrictions is necessary. Cutting people with chronic pain off from their meds has pushed them to the street supply, where overdose risk is far greater. This was bad policy from the start. It’s okay to admit a mistake has been made. #CPP

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 25/03/2025

Got to keynote the North Carolina Summit on Overdose last week - was really great to be there with everyone ❤️

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 04/03/2025

You’ve probably heard the phrase: “The opposite of addiction is connection.” It’s a catchy soundbite, but it simplifies a complex reality. It implies that people who use drugs are disconnected because of their drug use.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 01/03/2025

I thought I did. I’m usually pretty diligent about it! Here is the image again with the alt text.

Linked in post by Stephen Murray that reads: “Recovery isn't a moral upgrade. Being sober doesn't make you a better person, just like using drugs doesn't make you a worse one. But that's not how society sees it. This belief contagion is the basis of social disapproval.
Looking back at my own experience - so much of what happened early on in my journey was meant to make me feel not only powerless but also that I had caused immense harm to everyone around me. This insidious belief stewed inside of me for years, made me hate myself and wrecked my self-confidence. It wasn't until l became a firefighter that I actually felt worthy of being part of society again and that had nothing to do with my recovery or sobriety.
Sobriety is treated like a redemption arc-the thing that proves someone is now 'worthy' of care, respect, and a second chance. Meanwhile, people who continue using drugs are written off as lost causes, as if their lives only hold value if they commit to quitting. This thinking is everywhere. It's in the way we talk about drug use, how it is always equated with addiction, the way we design treatment programs, and the way we decide who gets help and who gets left behind.
Harm reduction isn't about nudging people toward abstinence
—it's about rejecting the idea that drug use makes someone disposable in the first place. If we really care about people who use drugs, then our support can't come with conditions cause it doesn't account for the spectrum of use. We create systems that are inaccessible and cruel and then blame drug users for not accessing them. We act like incarceration or involuntary treatment are the only options left. There's no accountability for what role the system and prohibition play in our evolving crises. It's all the fault of drug users. What an exhausting situation we created.”

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 01/03/2025

The full essay, if you feel like reading!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 25/02/2025

3 weeks until this event. Open to public. Come hang! www.eventbrite.com/e/developing...

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 22/02/2025

Excited to announce I have been appointed as Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor of Community Health Sciences at @busph.bsky.social Boston University School of Public Health !!

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 19/02/2025

There’s no such thing as rock bottom. Letting someone continue to suffer thinking they are heading there so that they can change is cruel. Thankfully my parents didn’t take that route.

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Stephen Murray, MPH, NRP @stephen-murray.com · 14/02/2025

At SafeSpot, we believe that everyone deserves care, safety, and connection-no exceptions. This Valentine's Day, remember: You are never alone. You are worthy of care. You deserve to be safe. If you are using alone, call us at 800-972-0590.

Love isn't just about romance-it's about showing up, holding space, and reminding people they matter. At SafeSpot, we believe that everyone deserves care, safety, and connection-no exceptions.

This Valentine's Day, remember: You are never alone. You are worthy of care. You deserve to be safe.

If you or someone you love is at risk of overdose, call us at 800-972-0590.

We're here to spot you. You do not have to use alone!

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