Baltimore health officials are running low on naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug used hundreds of times by bystanders in the last couple of years to save lives.
Dr. Leana Wen, the city health commissioner, said demand has jumped significantly along with the drug epidemic and the health department needs funding for more supplies.
"We are rationing," she said. "We're deciding who is at the highest risk and giving it to them."
The city has about 4,000 doses left to last until next May. The department will distribute them, two at a time, to residents, including IV drug users encountered by the city's needle exchange vans or by outreach workers in "hotspots," areas where a spate of overdoses recently occurred.
"If I had 10,000 doses and gave them to everyone who requested them, I'd run out in about two weeks," Wen said.
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14 comments:
You can also use high doses of vitamin c.. like 20-30 grams IV
They should put a tax on each bundle that a dealer sells to a street level dealer.
Somehow I have little sympathy.
423
Somehow?
Can't you make a definitive statement about your sympathy for other people's lives?
How about: I sympathize with those who are addicted to the heroin being produced in Afghanistan under the watchful eyes of the US Military and Intelligence Agencies?
How about that statement?
Can someone tell me the difference between a drug user without access to naloxone and one with? Seems to me that the user will eventually die anyway so why should taxpayers spare their eventual demise? If the drug user wants naloxone, let them BUY it just like they do the drugs and carry it on their person in the event someone might want to administer it to them.
Not cruel but practical.
"The city has about 4,000 doses left to last until next May."
As in May 2018?
You are kidding, right? That's a pathetically low number, small enough to warrant a lawsuit if someone asked for one, didn't get it, then watched a friend or stranger die.
let em all die! survival of the strongest. why should I work and pay for your f ups? no one but me pays for mine!
Because, 5:28, "all of the major dealers " are the US Military and Merchant Marine, government, CIA.
Can't stop that economy, it's the same people who "enforce the laws"!
There comes a point where natural selection steps in. Sorry for your luck.
615
Thank you
Oh please how ridiculous crawl in your underground bunker and get ready for the zombie apocalypse. Opium has been a problem ever since it was discovered laudnum black balls what ever you call it its been around for centuries and people will continue to us it in all the wrong ways. Just so happens that morals and integrity have been lost in our throw away instant gratification country
Because you arrest x amount of dealers, x amount of new dealers take their spot. This is how the drug game has always been, and will always be. Supply and demand. Need to start with curtailing the demand, in order to see supplies drop. But that won't ever happen. Human psyche and all. Some people just need a way to cope, before they know it....its too late.
5:27
That is how many they have to give out for FREE. People can still buy them if they want them bad enough.
They should be able to get them free with their Obamacare. Right?
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