Norway to trial Naloxone nasal spray to revive overdosing heroin addicts

Norway is poised to start trials of a nasal spray that reverses the effect of a heroin overdose, in a move that could encourage other countries to follow suit.

Despite its oil wealth, well-funded drug rehabilitation programmes and generous welfare safety net, Norway has western Europe's worst overdose rate.

Campaigners have long urged the government to approve the nasal spray, which administers Naloxone to people who have taken an overdose, in effect acting as a kind of liquid defibrillator.

Now, regulatory approval permitting, the Norwegian trials will offer the kit in Norway's two most populous cities, Oslo and Bergen, later this year.

Philipp Lobmaier, the doctor leading the trials, said that while Naloxone was no silver bullet, he was confident it would cut the number of ambulance cases. "I hope we will soon be able to show fewer incidents of paramedics being called out," he said.

Since 2002, about 240 people have died each year in Norway from heroin overdoses, more than from traffic accidents.