Starface’s Cofounder Tackles Hurt Discount Subsequent

America has an opioid drawback. It’s been nicely reported for the previous decade that deaths throughout the nation soared due to opioid habit and overprescription, however current years have additionally seen one other drawback: Fentanyl, an artificial opioid 50 occasions stronger than heroin and 100 occasions stronger than morphine, is being combined into road medicine and has now change into the main trigger of drug-related deaths. To these working on the forefront of the epidemic, drug security (not abstinence)—like carrying Narcan to halt an overdose or testing medicine earlier than utilizing them—is essentially the most viable strategy to influence the present drawback.

Brian Bordainick, the person behind the acne-destigmatization model Starface and emergency-contraception firm Julie, agrees and is becoming a member of the motion to take away the disgrace round drug security with the model Overdrive, which launches right this moment on Amazon.

“Hurt-reduction and drug-safety merchandise have change into extra accessible, with steps like shifting naloxone [the generic name of Narcan] over-the-counter and legalizing drug check strips in almost each state,” Bordainick says. “But regardless of these advances, adoption stays low as a result of these merchandise typically fail to resonate with the individuals who want them most. I wished to take what we now have realized in our different companies—addressing stigmatized points like zits, sexual well being, or smoking cessation—and study from these exterior the standard consumer-packaged-goods-marketing mannequin with an eye fixed towards leisure and media to find new methods of participating folks.”

Overdrive’s first product is a dependable fentanyl check package (5 strips, accompanying water packets, and mini spoons) that may detect the presence of the drug, serving to those that would already be utilizing the drug perceive if it’s secure or not.

“Our model is deliberately making an attempt to really feel extra like an energy-drink model and fewer like a sterile medical model,” says Ryan Weaver, the model’s government producer and inventive lead. It’s a technique already applied with enormous success with Julie, whose first industrial was written by cool-girl comic Esther Povitsky.