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Narcan: Life saving or enabling tool

The epidemic of heroin use has spun so rapidly out of control that many areas of the country are training everyday citizens to administer the drug that is an opioid antagonist. Narcan is the trade name for naloxone hydrochloride. Essentially Narcan blocks or reverses the effects of opioids including heroin. It competes for the same receptor sites in the body, and either blocks the body's ability to receive the heroin molecule or can drive the heroin from the site. It should be noted however, it is still not completely understood.

The Harrison Drug Act of 1914 placed drugs in a respective schedule based on whether they have currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United…

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  Narcan or Nar-can’t: Tips and Tricks to Safely Reversing Opioid Toxicity

The typical ED starting dose seems to be 0.4 mg administered intravenously. Use of this dose, like all things in medicine, is well supported by multiple, large, randomized trials. Just kidding! It comes from the 1960s anesthesia literature as the dose needed to reverse excessive postoperative sedation in opioid-naive patients.3 Decades later, changes in our patient population and the opioids they use have complicated naloxone dosing.

  How One Group Is Expanding Access to Overdose-Reversing Drugs Through the Mail

Since people can already order fentanyl and other harmful drugs via the darknet, NEXT wants to make obtaining items that reduce harm just as easy to get.

 An Anti-overdose Drug Is Getting Stronger. Maybe That’s a Bad Thing?

Naloxone is an extraordinary, lifesaving medication. But at high doses, it can backfire.

 Naloxone Has Made Overdosing Less Terrifying

Some drug users say that as long as the lifesaving drug is around, they don’t worry as much about dying.

 Naloxone remains controversial to some, but here’s why it shouldn’t be

The overdose-reversing drug naloxone saves thousands of lives each year and is more widely available today than ever. So why do overdose deaths across the U.S. continue to rise? According to one 2018 study, naloxone itself is partly to blame. Naloxone, the authors of the study wrote, increases opioid use and does not reduce opioid-related mortality overall because it provides users with a “safety net” and thus encourages riskier drug use.

 Naloxone Should Be As Ubiquitous As Tylenol

The drug that reverses opioid overdoses is safe and easy to use.

 Sending Your Kid to College? Send Them With Fentanyl Testing Strips and Naloxone.

Think of them as an essential harm-reduction tool, like condoms.

 This drug can stop an opioid overdose—and you should carry it

You can learn how to administer naloxone yourself.

 This overdose-reversal medicine could reduce opioid deaths – so why don’t more people carry it?

However, the most recent available data suggest that relatively few communities with high rates of opioid-related deaths actually have such programs. Even emergency medical personnel, or EMS, may not have naloxone when they need it.

 What is naloxone, and how does it reverse opioid overdoses?

And although many emergency-service staff carry naloxone, they often arrive too late to save a life, not least because witnesses can be hesitant to call 911 for fear of police involvement. Getting naloxone into more people’s hands would not solve America’s opioid crisis, but it would save lives.

Articles of Interest

Naloxone, the medicine helping fight the opioid crisis, explained

The effects of naloxone last for about 30 to 90 minutes, which is usually enough to stave off an overdose that could turn deadly. That not only can save a person’s life, but it also extends the opportunity to link someone to addiction treatment, such as highly effective medications like buprenorphine and methadone that are shown in the longer term to cut all-cause mortality among opioid addiction patients by half or more.

A lifesaving drug for overdoses doesn’t reduce opioid deaths? Be skeptical

Naloxone can be a “moral hazard,” a new paper concludes.

A new study backs up a lifesaving approach to the opioid epidemic

The study linked expanded access to naloxone to fewer opioid overdose deaths.

Anti-Overdose Drug Becoming an Everyday Part of Police Work

Once the exclusive purview of paramedics and emergency room doctors, administering lifesaving medication to drug users in the throes of an overdose is quickly becoming an everyday part of police work amid a national epidemic of heroin and opioid pill abuse.

Are We Reviving Too Many Opioid Overdoses? Is This Really a Question?

A new paper suggests the overdose-reversing drug naloxone presents a “moral hazard.” The economists’ case is built on an immoral premise.

Back from the Brink: Heroin's Antidote

VICE News went to Massachusetts to see how effective Narcan has been in stopping fatal overdoses, and uncovered the reasons why other states may have been slow to adopt similar life-saving programs.

How Does a $575 Life-Saving Drug Jump to $4,500? Blame a Perverse System

But three years after Evzio came out, its cost has exploded to $4,500 per prescription. Like the pharma company Mylan did with Epi-Pen—another simple, life-saving drug—Evzio's maker has raised its price as high as the market will bear.

Naloxone in opioid poisoning: walking the tightrope

Acute opioid intoxication and overdose are common causes of presentation to emergency departments. Although naloxone, a pure opioid antagonist, has been available for many years, there is still confusion over the appropriate dose and route of administration.

Naloxone, Yes, But 3 Other Drugs Are Essential to Fight the Opioid Epidemic

For people who do want treatment, however, the good news is that three FDA-approved medications exist to treat opioid addiction. Together, the three are often termed “medication-assisted treatment,” or MAT.

Narcan Can Save an Opioid User's Life. What to Know About the Drug

The primary goal of giving someone naloxone is not to revive them, but to restore their ability to breathe, since opioid overdoses kill people through asphyxiation, says Dr. Lewis Nelson, chair in the department of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

Overdose Antidote Is Supposed to Be Easy to Get. It’s Not.

The program was created with the idea that anyone, including minors, could walk into a participating pharmacy and leave with the drug, under what is known as a standing order: Pharmacists were to use the city health commissioner’s name, Mary T. Bassett, in place of a prescribing physician’s. They were to show the customer how to administer naloxone and bill their insurance.

To End the Opioid Epidemic, We Need Way More Than OD Treatments

Narcan is a fine place to start, but it’s not a solution. Opioids can inhibit the body’s response to the accumulation of carbon dioxide, suppressing our incentive to keep breathing, and Narcan works to reverse the drugs' effects. The treatment started as an injection used in clinical settings, but now friends or family members can use it as a nasal spray or a simple, EpiPen-like injection.

Why a Study on Opioids Ignited a Twitter Firestorm

A paper on overdose-reversal drugs reached a conclusion no one liked. The pushback raised questions about sexism and scientific methods.

‘We’re making harm reduction cool’: overdose reversal Narcan becomes a rave essential

As recreational drugs like cocaine are increasingly cut with fentanyl, a movement has sprung up to prevent deaths in nightclubs.

Resources

Law Enforcement Naloxone Toolkit

The Law Enforcement Naloxone Toolkit provides law enforcement with the knowledge and tools needed to reduce opioid overdoses and help save lives.

NEXT Distro

An online and mail-based harm reduction platform designed to reduce opioid overdose death, prevent injection-related disease transmission, and improve the lives of people who use drugs.

Narcan

Do more than worry, when someone you love takes opioids, let NARCAN® be there for both of you.