More than 50 Canberrans have been saved from fatal heroin and opioid overdoses thanks to an Australia-first trial that has equipped users with take-home naloxone kits.

Medical professionals are warning that numerous opioid overdose deaths they see may have been preventable had people been able to recognize the signs of overdose and sought medical assistance earlier.

It is attempting to raise awareness of the “devastating effects” drug overdoses can have on public health.

It’s all a part of worldwide Overdose Awareness Day.

The medication, which is also sold under the brand name Narcan, is not a narcotic and has no effect on conditions not caused by opioids.

The trial has been dubbed a “trailblazing success” by industry experts and advocates with the drug used to prevent 57 overdoses.

Director of the Ana Liffey Drug Project Tony Duffin says a strategy to address the issue needs to be agreed.

Over a fifth of overdose deaths in 2012 were attributable to alcohol alone.

Police officers are often first on the scene of an overdose because they are already in their vehicles and driving around the community.

“So it’s a polydrug use problem; for example we know that one in five of the overdose deaths that occurred in 2012 exclusively involved alcohol”.

“Addicts usually use in their bathrooms in their homes and they lock the door so that they have their privacy and they will turn on the showers to the family thinks that they’re taking a very long shower not knowing that their person is using in the bathroom”, said Dominque Leveque whose son was a teenage lacrosse player.

What kind of measures might work?

“Having a simple, clear national overdose prevention strategy as envisaged by the current National Drug Strategy is important”, he said.

Rep. Henry Beck, a Democrat, sponsored the bill that allows a friend or other person close to an opiate user to administer naloxone, also known as Narcan, according to the House Democratic Office.

-The introduction of minimum unit pricing for alcohol.