January 28, 2019 – Bill Kubota, Detroit PBS One Detroit

Kelly’s Bar in Hamtramck was packed on a January Friday night.

Scott Boyink’s band Steve Harvey Oswald opened the show.

After his set, he wended through the crowd with his drumsticks and a silver briefcase.

A part of Detroit’s music scene for two decades, he’s watched the effects of the opioid epidemic.

“I decided I wanted to start doing something about this when we started losing people whose music I really, really liked,” Boyink told One Detroit.

He opens his briefcase, which is filled with Narcan—the nasal spray that can save lives of opioid overdose victims if they can get it in time—handing three doses to a woman who plans on distributing them to others in her Detroit neighborhood.

“There is no doubt an opioid epidemic, but there’s an opioid epidemic that’s tempered with a fentanyl problem,” Boyink said. “There’s a component to it that we haven’t seen before.”

According to Boyink, highly potent opioid fentanyl has been showing up in cocaine and people don’t know it.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates nationally more than 70,000 people died from opioids in 2017 with Michigan ranking 11^th in opioid deaths at nearly 2,000.

Boyink began his one-man crusade last year, putting Narcan in Hamtramck and Detroit bars.

“What I usually tell them to do is keep it by the cash register,” said Boyink. “Because if you lock it in an office, it’s going to take too long to get to.”

Michigan law allows Narcan to be provided without prescription.

It costs about $70 a dose, but much of Boyink’s supply was donated by an emergency room doctor who apparently liked what he was doing.

Boyink said he gives regular Narcan training sessions local bars, promoted on social media.

His idea seems to be catching on.

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This January, the Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority (DWMHA) held its own training session at El Club in southwest Detroit.

“That was the first time we ever did it in a bar,” said Darlene Owens, Director of Substance Use Disorders Initiatives. “We’re used to churches, recreational centers, rotary clubs, but to do it in a bar in the community where actually we had folks that were heroin abusers that were there, and it was just great to be there.”

DWMHA started training police departments in Wayne County how to administer Narcan three years ago.

Last year, DWMHA started with the general public after Owens’s team created a Narcan kit that comes with the nasal spray, gloves and a face shield.

Owens said the gloves protect the care provider from exposure to fentanyl, which can be absorbed through the skin.

The face shield can be used when giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“Our goal is for everyone to have a Narcan kit with them at all times,” Owens said, “because it could happen to anybody.”

DWMHA provides training throughout Wayne County when asked, complete with free kits.

Owens said they’re booked up through September.

Meanwhile, Boyink’s mission has changed his life.

He said he’s never had a serious drug problem, but heavy drinking led to him quitting his restaurant bar job to get away from the temptation.

For years he’d been trying to make a living screen printing tee-shirts in the basement of his Mount Clemens home, but now his experience with alcohol has led to a job as a peer advisor helping people overcome their addictions.

Boyink said he’ll keep handing out his supply of Narcan until it’s all gone.

He said he’s heard of individuals doing the same thing in places like Milwaukee and Chicago, and others keep asking him how he did it.

“I certainly wasn’t reinventing the wheel on this,” Boyink said.

He’s working day and night, looking to connect with any opioid user he can.

“I’m not here to judge them, I’m here to enable them to eventually make the right decision. And that’s what Narcan does.”

If they live, they can enter recovery, Boyink said.

See Boyink’s story airing on Detroit Public Television’s    Thursday January 31^st at 7:30pm.

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