BALTIMORE — A crowd quickly gathers here on one of West Baltimore’s many drug-infested street corners. But it isn’t heroin they’re seeking. It’s a heroin antidote known as naloxone, or Narcan.
Two city health department workers are holding up slim salmon-colored boxes and explaining that the medication inside can be used to stop someone from dying of a heroin overdose. Most onlookers nod solemnly in recognition. They’ve heard about the drug. They want to know more.
Nationwide, more than 150,000 people received naloxone kits from community outreach programs like Baltimore’s between 1996 and 2014, and more than 26,000 overdoses were reversed using those kits, according to a recent survey funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In addition, police, emergency medical technicians and emergency room physicians have used the drug to save tens of thousands of lives. Baltimore police officers started carrying the kits last year.
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Maybe we should have the heroin dealers give out Narcan with each dose of their product they sell.
ReplyDeleteOne downside to this is the thought in the back of the druggies' head that some first-responder will be nearby with narcan if they OD. That's one reason our local Sheriff refuses to carry it. That and the liability issues, because people sometimes go berserk when they revive.
ReplyDeleteOf course, if we didn't have tons of heroin freely flowing across our border, this wouldn't be such a problem, would it?
the dealers don't want the users to die, they need them. so lets keep them alive so that the dealers can pay their rent. in da bury
ReplyDeleteheroin dealers are just filling a need. the gov't restricts pain medicine for those who TRULY need it so they turn to heroin as a substitute. it's cheaper and more readily available. and the dealers don't treat you like you are a second class citizen when you go looking for it like our medical practitioners do.
ReplyDelete