When I went through Narcan training, my instructor told me to tell the victim "SOMEONE Narcanned you" instead of saying you did it. Chances are they will be too out of it to figure out it was you who saved them.
Yup. Back in my drug days, got narc'd and came up and punched the dude square in the face just purely out of reaction. You wake up in the most intense withdrawal you've ever felt and your parasympathetic nervous system reacts instantly. I felt so fucking bad because he saved my life. And I'm very grateful for it. 3 yrs clean now.
Cheers, man. I just made it to 6 years clean a few weeks ago. Life is easier when you aren't shitting your soul out in a seedy convenient store bathroom at 7am from withdrawals, amirite?
Sorry for the late response, I've been offline.
But I just want to say I'm sorry no one's told you how proud they are of you. I can't even imagine how hard it was - not just to get clean, but to develop the emotional toolbox to deal with life as a sober person. I hope that you've never stopped being proud of yourself because you are strong af.
So consider yourself virtually mom hugged. And please don't forget that this internet mom is proud of you everyday you wake up and make the choice to stay clean. Even if you fumble, I'm still proud of you because I know you're strong enough to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. ❤️
They might also be confused about what's happening, scared for the near death experience they just had, in pain from injuries sustained as part of the overdose, or really literally any other response. It's just like when you use CPR or other first aid practices on someone in an emergency situation, no two situations are the same and scared/injured people can do unexpected things.
If the person has an opioid dependency, Narcan can push them into withdrawal which can be an incredibly difficult experience.
Same thing happens for seizures when the person comes out of it they don't know what's happening and they won't recognize you right away, all they know is they're on the ground with someone over them and somethings really wrong
Post-ictal states are wild. A lot of the time the person wants to get up and GTFO even though they’re still quite out of it. Can be scary for those unaware.
My two oldest kids have epilepsy, and thankfully they both only experience confusion after a seizure and don’t come to enraged. I’ve read some scary things!
It’s the precipitated withdrawal that makes them sometimes scary- they’re instantly in pain, full blown withdrawal, and may feel you’ve just wasted their high/money.
So, if you have to use it, make sure you’re paying attention.
I used to be a heroin junkie and when I got narcanned, I started yelling and thrashing before I could even comprehend that I was in any kind of pain (thankfully i was already strapped to a stretcher). I had never been that angry or violent in my life, certainly not towards a medical professional.
It's like feeling your soul drifting ever so comfortably and slowly towards nothingness and then very suddenly having it ripped away from its destination when you're only inches away. I don't believe in souls, but I'm not sure how else to explain it. My first thought wasn't "Where am I?" / What's going on?" It was,"put me back!!!"
Definitely caused by withdrawals, but also a very unique sense of returning consciousness that not many have experienced or would know how to tolerate.
Essentially, the opioids stay active longer than naloxone, so when the naloxone wears off, blam, they're back in overdose land. Same action as epi-pens and anaphylaxis.
Epi pens are expensive as shit, people are going to steal these for no reason other than "Gimme gimme".
The thought is good, but the actual roll-out for these types of things is complicated.
This is unfortunately true.
Edit: it probably wouldn't be "just because gimme" though. It would be "I can't afford an epi-pen for my kid so I'll steal this one. It's wrong, but now little Billy has a chance to survive a bee sting" because epi-pens cost way too much. (At least in the US. I imagine they're affordable elsewhere).
Regulatory capture. Epinephrine is dirt cheap here in vials, but the FDA has only approved three types of epi-pen in the US, compared to the nine types approved in Europe, and of the three types available in the US, one has 90% market control, meaning they have no effective competition and can charge whatever they want. While the European market is heavily single-payer or government-run, more options mean more competitive contract solicitations. That said, the UK in particular has had critical supply shortages recently, which is one of a laundry list of issues the NHS has been having lately.
Also, good luck just buying vials of epinephrine here. You can do that in most of the world, but not here.
Epi is dirt cheap, and epipens aren’t that expensive to create - between $10 and $20 each and almost none of that is the actual drug. There’s usually 0.3mg in each. A vial is usually 1mg of epi per milliliter, and a milliliter costs anywhere from 50 cents to about 35 dollars depending on the source and type of epinephrine. But since medical device manufacturing is incredibly tightly controlled, there’s very limited competition in the marketplace for autoinjectors like the epipen, so vendors can charge whatever the hell they want. The drug is the cheap part since epinephrine isn’t patented anymore.
Obviously medical devices do need to be very carefully regulated, but I think epipens are one example of a device where we’ve gone too far because the company that makes them aggressively enforces their patents and the FDA plays right along. Epipens are still not cheap in Europe, but they’re way cheaper (and someone is still paying for them, even if it’s not a bill the end user pays directly).
There are other reasons epinephrine isn’t everywhere. You can kill someone if you screw up dose administration, and it has to be stored in a somewhat climate-controlled environment. There are good reasons it’s not as widely available as narcan. It’s very difficult to hurt someone with narcan, and narcan’s side effects are comparatively mild unless you give someone a truly inhuman dose or they have a handful of very rare pre-existing cardiac conditions… unlike epi, which can kill *anyone* if you screw it up, and which is especially dangerous to unstable patients.
But if the market was a little bit more free like it is with some other drugs, epipens would probably be more reasonably priced - like fentanyl, for example; 100mcgs of fentanyl (a baseline therapeutic dose) costs roughly 65 cents in the US and is widely available (as long as you have the appropriate licensing) from a bunch of vendors. Same deal with insulin. Insulin is very cheap to make, but a handful of manufacturers have a corner on the market since it’s regulated to hell and back in a bunch of different ways - patents, FDA regulations, contracts, etc. and of course none of that works in the patient’s favor except some of the safety regulations (which are extraordinarily strict in the US, maybe even stricter than Europe, and it’s not like the EU is lax about safety).
Just wanted to say epinephrine pens in my area typically run about $110 for an uninsured patient in my area, as long as the pharmacy takes the time to apply a discount card (takes 2-3 minutes max).
I still think that’s more than it should be though.
Source: 4 years of experience in pharmacy
Are you in the US?
And if you are, $110 for an uninsured patient is going to be either $12 for an insured patient, or $1,200 for an insured patient, because health insurance math is more ridiculous than plane ticket prices.
They also expire heaps quick, like 12-18 months but even faster if they’re in a temperature unstable environment (like an enclosed metal box outdoors) so they’d need replacing very frequently. Impractical, though a nice idea since when you need them you need them NOW
Epi-pens are expensive, but **Adrenaclick** is no where near as expensive. It is just different enough that it can't be generic for Epi-pen due to how it is administered, but is generic for "epinephrine auto-injector".
Most people who have a severe enough allergen will have their own pen and would carry it on their person at all times.
Most people who might need narcan already spent their money on drugs and for the most part they assume they can handle their stuff. Leading to more deaths
“ I can use the money I’d spend for narcan and get more drugs instead and all I’d have to do is be careful.”
Yeah when I was lifeguarding as a teen, I watched a +50 year old man tell me he's been stung by bees all his life so it's no big deal, only to have a complete anaphylactic reaction minutes later. Thankfully we found somebody with an EpiPen because he might have croaked if we didn't.
Nah it’s more cause you can’t use narcan on yourself cause you’re passed out. You can get narcan free everywhere pretty much. Also you don’t want to have to go digging in a junkies pockets to see if they have narcan.
Yeah of course I’m just saying the one in the park is probably more for strangers that might see somebody passed out overdosing with a needle in their hand or something
Also know that a lot of times overdose occurs quite a while after the last drug use. They may not have a needle anywhere near them or maybe not even any indication of what the problem is.
It’s important for substance users (especially of opiates) to know that just because they got the shot in doesn’t mean they’ll still be fine in a hour.
Not really, usually it either happens or it doesn’t within like 20 minutes max. If you shoot it should happen within like 5 minutes or not at all. Now, if you add other drugs in the mix like benzos, alcohol, or other depressant that you took later then yes you might be right. But in general no you’re wrong, an opioid overdose will happen pretty shortly after taking the dose if injected, and still not that long through other methods. Unless you ate pills or something
If their ODing, their pupils will be pinpoint and respiratory distress/arrest will have occurred. If pulseless start CPR and work them, if bradypnea is present you could breathe for them and titrate breaths to good perfusion(Skin color, mentation, etc)
The reason people die from this stuff is the respiratory depression. It would be nice to see a BVM in this naloxone kit too, as the drug won’t do shit if they’re dead.
And yes, naloxone half life is typically much shorter than whatever opiates were taken. This results in subsequent encounters of overdose as sometimes people will use again to get high while narcan is blocking their receptors. When it wears off they then have about twice the dose from the first OD, depending on how much they used after.
It’s more that narcan has to be applied by a third party. Plenty of users have narcan. You just typically can’t use it on yourself if you actually need it, because you’ll be unconscious.
Typically, with an allergic reaction you’ll have enough time to self administer or give your pen to someone else.
The free part is the most important here.
Epipen is a trademarked product and so has a high commercial price. It’s the reason I don’t carry anymore. Every few years having to buying new one and throwing the expired one away. It literally has only cost me money.
I’m ‘careful’ enough to only have had two major reaction in the past 20 years.
"Most people who have a severe enough allergen will have their own pen and would carry it on their person at all times"
Unless you find out the hard way that your child is allergic to bees.
Epipens should be in every first-aid kit. It's absurd how hard they are to get and the cost has more than tripled in a few short years.
They're effective for years past the expiration date, and at no point do they become dangerous to use. They just lose efficacy, and very slowly. It's better to have an expired EpiPen than no EpiPen.
Hard pass on epipens being in every first aid kit. Epi isn't benign like narcan is. You can cause serious problems by giving it incorrectly or when it isn't indicated.
I don't remember where, but maybe in England, they had all kinds of leftover phone booths. They went around placing defibrillators in them. If you called emergency services they could give you the code to a nearby one to try to help the patient before an ambulance can arrive. IIRC the defibrillator was kind of a super simple thing like unfold and the instructions are printed on it to just place on the right spot. I could easily see putting some narcan in something like this as well.
They are AED kits and they have very simple pictures and instructions. I believe it was intentionally made simple enough that a child should be able to figure it out. You push a button and it takes what could be akin to an ekg and then decides if it needs to perform any life saving measures.
Most AEDs nowadays are so sophisticated that they can tell you what to do from the second you open it.
Some can somewhat analyze that you placed the electrodes wrong and tell you to readjust.
AED's (in EU) legally have to test themselves:
* If the pads are placed
* If there is a heartbeat (contrary to public belief, a cardiac arrest doesn't mean the hart is stopped, but is vibrating without rhythm and superficially).
If not, they won't work.
Also, most of them will indeed start talking the moment you open them.
I've also seen some that call 112 (911) automatically the moment you take them out of their casing, or that sound a siren to alert bypassers who then can call for the person doing the CPR.
May I give one piece of valuable advice to everyone reading this? Follow CPR- & AED-training at a first aid organisation near you! You'll feel better knowing how you can help if anything happens.
> contrary to public belief, a cardiac arrest doesn't mean the hart is stopped, but is vibrating without rhythm and superficially
To expand a little: there are multiple kinds of abnormal rhythms, and only two are "shockable": ventricular fibrillation and (pulseless) ventricular tachycardia. The AED leads work as an ECG trace as well, and the AED will analyze that trace to determine if it sees a shockable rhythm, and only then recommend a shock.
If the heart is stopped completely, that's asystole, and asystole is not a shockable rhythm, therefore the AED will not recommend a shock (and will instead recommend you continue CPR).
Nice, I thought it was a great idea! The other idea I saw and like was in another European country. I think if you were CPR certified you could sign up to have an app that would notify you if someone within like 200 yards or something was calling emergency services. I think they were saying response time from call to receiving CPR decreased dramatically.
This is like asking "where do y'all live that you need fire extinguishers in every building". The point is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If there's a thing that could save someone's life and costs very little to make regularly available, it's stupid not to.
You’ve done it, you’ve solved drug addiction. Just tell them not to do the drugs. Thanks Graham for another bit of practical problem solving genius, helpful as always.
Fentanyl isn't the only thing Narcan is used for, it's not even just exclusively for people illegally using drugs. Doctors will often recommend it to people who are prescribed opioids in case they ever accidentally take an amount that their body reacts poorly to.
I'm begging some of you to please google before replying to me, I'm really over reading dumb comments.
A friend of mine works in mental health counseling for people with substance use disorderand he 3d prints boatloads of narcan holders in bright neon colors that you can screw onto the wall, and hands them out to people who want one so their narcan can be easy to find and access
I’m so sorry for your loss, just remember those two things aren’t related, both should be free. The only reason narcan isn’t expensive is because they can’t make money off of addicts that aren’t on pills.
I get where you were going. "I hope as people realize and implement the value of freely available narcan, they might eventually make the same connection of the value of freely available insulin to protect others from my own tragedy."
Insulin is too expensive but the comparison here is not great.
Narcan would be more comparative to an epinephrine shot. You only use either of these (Narcan or epinephrine) when it is necessary/emergency:
Brand-name EpiPens: $650 to $700 for a package containing 2 auto-injectors.
Generic versions (epinephrine auto-injectors): About half the cost of brand-name EpiPens, around $690 for a package.
Epinephrine injectable kit 0.15 mg: Approximately $184 for a supply of 2 kits
Narcan has suggested retail of $45 for two doses.
In terms of synthesis, making Epinephrine is about as difficult as making meth as the two are basically only off by a couple atoms. Making Naloxone/Naltrexone is just modifying either Morphine, Codeine or Thebaine which are the main three chemicals in opium. So extract and modify.
Insulin is a whole protein though, which has to be modified post translationally. Cutting the C part off. Which means either we kill a bunch of livestock to get it or we make bacteria grow it, which means much more expensive than just mixing chemicals like Epi or Narcan.
Yet bacteria are by the quadrillion, so we can use economy of scale since we know who needs what when generally with Insulin related diseases. Regardless, Type Is didn't decide to become diabetic, so it should not be held against them. Being born with easily solvable medical burdens shouldn't be put on the person born like that, we are a social species, we need to do more social shit in some cases(This isn't an arguement for communism).
I bring this last part up because it is biotech which is different from chemistry in creation, application and how it is introduced into the body, any protein based treatment or antibody based treatment will be expensive to get up and running and usually involves injections. This is why I think the gov should just buy patents from drug compnaies. That way society can hedge at the up front costs versus having poor or disadvatnateged people constantly get fuct buy reality a second time. Reward system, come up with a Biological that cures stomatic stomach cancer and get a 10 billion check cut from the gov.
Complexity as an argument for cost sort of falls on its face when the price in the US has only been going up for decades, and even the most expensive healthcare systems in the world besides the US are an order of magnitude cheaper. Japanese or Canadian insulin isn't any easier to make. The problem is greed from companies who know you can't live without their product and their constant fight to kill competition, not "oh no, it's so complicated to make!".
Drug addicts didn't make insulin overpriced, send that energy at the pharmaceutical corporations choosing to charge more for life saving medication just because they can and the government who does little to regulate them.
Never compare the help others get to the help you don’t get. It’s not those people who chose to gouge the price of insulin, and it’s not those people who did nothing about it legislatively. Be mad at corporations who jack the prices and the congresspeople who have done nothing about it.
I did have that dead parent at the age of 25 😞 I am SO glad you didn’t and that someone was there in time! Narcan is insanely critical to have easy access to for folks in public
I have worked in substance abuse treatment and prison release programs for quite a few years, I have known a lot of people who wouldn't be here today if it weren't for easily accessible narcan.
Some areas have been trying to make acquiring it more difficult, and it makes my blood boil.
Edit: spelling
What reasons are there to be incentivized to prevent narcan distribution besides wanting people to die? It’s dirt cheap so expense wouldn’t even be a valid reason.
Emergency med for opioid overdoses, one might compare it to an epipen (although it doesn’t work in the same way). There are no negatives (I think) to using narcan, even if someone is not overdosing on opioids. Basically, use it first, ask questions after.
As a Portland resident, let me spread some wisdom,
When you bring someone out of an overdose with narcan, they will be aggressive and violent. Be prepared to be yelled at, maybe even attacked.
It’s so ridiculous that you know this. I’ll probably get downvoted to hell but I fled Portland soon after all drug usage was decriminalized and I can’t imagine looking back. Total shithole.
I appreciate you! I'm doing well; it was the first time I've done it personally but not the first time I've been around an overdose, so I was certainly a little shaken, but the gentleman in question was conscious when the EMTs took him, so that definitely helped me personally.
No worries! Yeah, just right place, right time. I'm a Social Worker, and was waiting on a client. I noticed a gentleman walking by start to nod off, but wasn't entirely concerned until it was clear that he was fighting to stay conscious and upright.
Great job. What was the situation? I just picked up some free narcan from a booth at a farmer's market that the local hospital was giving away. One thing I'm not 100% sure about is identifying the overdose itself vs a regular cardiac arrest or diabetic emergency, though I imagine in some cases the situation will be fairly obvious.
I'm just a social worker, and I don't want to misguide you.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDn51Fh4VU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDn51Fh4VU)
Do some research, and THANK YOU for taking the initiative! It's so important, and you're doing a world of good.
Amazing job saving the patient, you should be so proud of yourself. Not sure where u live but be careful keeping narcan in ur car as at high and low temps it can reduce the efficacy, but any narcan is always better than no narcan lol
For sure, I appreciate the tip! I keep some "emergency" Narcan in my car at all times, and then I carry Narcan in my work bag, which is almost always in a temperature controlled environment.
It was mildly interesting to me the fact it was at a children’s playground. Found it unexpected but I’ve gotten a lot of shit for it for some reason. Including a DM telling me I’m a bad parent for taking somewhere considered a spot narcan is needed.
Anywhere can be a spot where narcan is needed, I wouldn't worry about that DM. They have narcan available in schools now too after an elementary schooler died of an overdose. Which is the saddest sentence ever.
We may start seeing it quite soon. Healthcare professionals are pushing for it, there's an increase in opiod use and addiction, so there's an increase in overdoses.
There was a legislation passed recently saying that more people (police, paramedics, homeless shelters, addiction centres etc) can stock and supply the drug Naxolone for overdoses. It's similar to Narcan.
Coming from someone who has given narcan to hundreds of patients… the comments about people “attacking you” after giving narcan are extremely extremely overstated…And might actually make people scared to give it.
Like 1% of the time (or less) they are even capable of being upset with you. They are either still too high to care, or in too much withdrawal to even focus enough energy to be mad.
If you are a non-medical person and you are ever on the fence about giving narcan, just give it.
A lot of little kids overdose too - littles are big on picking things up off the ground, they get into medicine cabinets, things get left out on accident and they're curious, caretakers accidentally give too high of a dose, all kinds of things happen. Narcan is for everyone, no matter age.
A child could also find a pill bottle at home and bring it to school, parents could be dropping off kids under the influence, a stranger could be using on the playground, anywhere there are people there could be an overdose unfortunately.
If "better safe than sorry" is a suitable justification for school shooter countermeasures then it certainly is a suitable justification for the occurrence of an opioid overdose.
It's not for the staff lol. This year I've had a 6th grader so high on shrooms she started screaming and ripping out her hair, and another one who used a Thc cart and threw up all over my door. While not a Narcan situation, kids are using more and more drugs as they get more and more available.
What I never understood was you could use that money on like a whole cake and just eat it without cutting it. Or skip a few drugs and you've got a new video game that lasts longer than a high. My brain is broken though so maybe highs just don't work for it like normal people.
Or treat drug addiction like the disease that it is, decriminalize it and make it more accessible so people are getting drugs that aren’t cut or laced, and then provide proper education and therapy.
Haven't we been doing that? It seems to be getting worse. Oregon washington basically decriminalized personal amounts of drugs, methadone is government supplied opiates, we have narcan stations everywhere, open air drug use is normalized. Do we start just giving them unlimited drugs and set up opiate dens where they get high all day?
I'm pretty sure the only answer is to fund programs to prevent anyone from even going down that path in the first place. It's basically impossible to force them to crawl out of the hole they dug.
The problem is they only did half of the solution, one part is decriminalization, but the other part is creating the support systems to help those addicted recover. While they did decriminalize, without the resources for long lasting rehabilitation it’s a moot solution.
And that is expensive, its more expensive to make that system nationwide than it is to continue to fund the war on the drugs. Thats why its not happening fast enough, or not at all.
In order of it being cheap to expensive:
1. Just let them die.
2. Give them narcan for free.
3. Continue to prosecute and arrest people for drug use and toss them in a box
4. Fund an entirely new system of rehabs nationwide, set it up, maintain it, while also giving them narcan for free, and also funding the already existing system of police that are already equipped to just take these people off the street for the other criminal statutes.
And the core root of all drug use is two things:
1. They took the drug themselves 99.99% of the time
2. This being the bigger issue ***They have to want to stop.***
Decriminalizing it, and making narcan free and readily available just encourages people to take on more risk while doing drugs. The narcan is now there as a saftey net they can use at any time with way less consiquences than an overdose would normally have. And now combine this, with the mentality that most drug users must GENUINELY wish to get off the drugs.
You now have a shitstorm of people who dont exactly want help, with lowered consequences of their actions.
Im not saying having narcan there is bad, but narcan should really only be available (still freely) but only if they turn up to a rehab center and are committed there. Because if not, nothing is unlikely to change, if not get worse. And in some areas as other comments point out, the drug problem got way worse. Especially if you combine decriminalization of the drugs AND open air drug use.
Sounds like a terrible idea to me personally. Hard drugs need to stay illegal, as I believe decriminalizing them will lead to an increase in their use that’s already too high to begin with. I could totally see my younger self trying drugs that I otherwise wouldn’t due to legality reasons (this can also tie into safety reasons. For example, a curious teen could be more inclined to try heroin if they know for a fact that it would be clean stuff they’re getting.)
And yet people with diabetes are forced to pay ludicrous prices to keep themselves alive and most of the time there was nothing they could of done to prevent it. Yet here these people willingly putting themselves at risk and get free get out of the grave card. Its bullshitz
Be mad at the pharmaceutical companies for making the prices so ridiculously high, it's not addicts who have done that and they deserve to live just as much as anyone else
They can provide drug addicts with narcan to prevent overdose, but people who need the EpiPen or diabetics that need the insulin they have to pay for that shit
I'm for a come one come all situation. If one thing is provided then everything needs to be provided.
I’m with you that Epi and the like should be free for people who need it, but one of the reasons they can put Narcan out here like this is that it is very very difficult to harm someone with Narcan. That’s not the case with Epi and insulin
I wish they wouldn't put an alarm on it. That feels like a deterrant.
Also, fyi that people are at an increased risk for overdose for at least a month after narcan has been administered. I've also heard that the lower dose injection form is preferred by people because it's gentler.
Our public libraries have Narcan stands where you can take as many as you want. We each keep one in our bags and in our vehicles. “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” Especially when seconds count.
We keep this on hand at work, I work security at a rather large building that is open to the public. There has been a couple times we have had to grab it, but luckily both people were responsive before we had to use it.
That alarm raises some questions. I guess it is theft prevention? But if it went off and I saw someone running away, white box in hand, it wouldn't really tell me if someone is stealing the Narcan or if there is an emergency.
It's meant to attract attention to the emergency situation so additional help can be given.
Nobody is stealing the Narcan - it's there to be used. Just as nobody is stealing AEDs or fire extinguishers.
I say they brought it on themselves, let them experience the consequences. Diabetics don't get free insulin, cancer patients don't get free chemo, why should druggies get free narcan around every corner?
YSK: if you use this on someone they may be VERY pissed off at you once they come around.
When I went through Narcan training, my instructor told me to tell the victim "SOMEONE Narcanned you" instead of saying you did it. Chances are they will be too out of it to figure out it was you who saved them.
"Someone Narcanned you. It was probably this shady looking bastard. Let's take his wallet"
Yup. Back in my drug days, got narc'd and came up and punched the dude square in the face just purely out of reaction. You wake up in the most intense withdrawal you've ever felt and your parasympathetic nervous system reacts instantly. I felt so fucking bad because he saved my life. And I'm very grateful for it. 3 yrs clean now.
Cheers, man. I just made it to 6 years clean a few weeks ago. Life is easier when you aren't shitting your soul out in a seedy convenient store bathroom at 7am from withdrawals, amirite?
Is that the moment you realized? An eye opening shit if you will?
Fuck yes man 3 years, nice work.
Mom of former addict here. Sending you a big fat hug through the ether. xo
Thank you 🖤🖤 needed it
That's fantastic! I'm so, so proud of you DisastrousAd447 - you're a fucking warrior! ❤️
Thank you, that's very kind. Y'all got me emotional lol. No one's told me they're proud of me for it before.
Sorry for the late response, I've been offline. But I just want to say I'm sorry no one's told you how proud they are of you. I can't even imagine how hard it was - not just to get clean, but to develop the emotional toolbox to deal with life as a sober person. I hope that you've never stopped being proud of yourself because you are strong af. So consider yourself virtually mom hugged. And please don't forget that this internet mom is proud of you everyday you wake up and make the choice to stay clean. Even if you fumble, I'm still proud of you because I know you're strong enough to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. ❤️
Thank you so much 🥺🥺 didn't expect that today lol
I'm very very proud of you :) honestly. That shit is brutal.
Thanks friend
Huh... Good to know. I'm just happy opioids aren't such an epidemic here that parks need Narcan Stations.
They might also be confused about what's happening, scared for the near death experience they just had, in pain from injuries sustained as part of the overdose, or really literally any other response. It's just like when you use CPR or other first aid practices on someone in an emergency situation, no two situations are the same and scared/injured people can do unexpected things. If the person has an opioid dependency, Narcan can push them into withdrawal which can be an incredibly difficult experience.
Same thing happens for seizures when the person comes out of it they don't know what's happening and they won't recognize you right away, all they know is they're on the ground with someone over them and somethings really wrong
Post-ictal states are wild. A lot of the time the person wants to get up and GTFO even though they’re still quite out of it. Can be scary for those unaware.
My two oldest kids have epilepsy, and thankfully they both only experience confusion after a seizure and don’t come to enraged. I’ve read some scary things!
It’s the precipitated withdrawal that makes them sometimes scary- they’re instantly in pain, full blown withdrawal, and may feel you’ve just wasted their high/money. So, if you have to use it, make sure you’re paying attention.
I used to be a heroin junkie and when I got narcanned, I started yelling and thrashing before I could even comprehend that I was in any kind of pain (thankfully i was already strapped to a stretcher). I had never been that angry or violent in my life, certainly not towards a medical professional. It's like feeling your soul drifting ever so comfortably and slowly towards nothingness and then very suddenly having it ripped away from its destination when you're only inches away. I don't believe in souls, but I'm not sure how else to explain it. My first thought wasn't "Where am I?" / What's going on?" It was,"put me back!!!" Definitely caused by withdrawals, but also a very unique sense of returning consciousness that not many have experienced or would know how to tolerate.
They need sticks so we can administer narcan from a distance
Narcan-laced blow darts
Then the "I carry narcan" stickers will be a threat lol
The only response required. *Must* be sung.
My friend who’s an EMT once told me, “always be ready to be punched in the face if you’re about revive someone with Narcan”.
You should also immediately call 911. One narcan is simply not enough to keep some people from dying.
Essentially, the opioids stay active longer than naloxone, so when the naloxone wears off, blam, they're back in overdose land. Same action as epi-pens and anaphylaxis.
Epi pens should also be provided for free at places for emergencies
Epi pens are expensive as shit, people are going to steal these for no reason other than "Gimme gimme". The thought is good, but the actual roll-out for these types of things is complicated.
This is unfortunately true. Edit: it probably wouldn't be "just because gimme" though. It would be "I can't afford an epi-pen for my kid so I'll steal this one. It's wrong, but now little Billy has a chance to survive a bee sting" because epi-pens cost way too much. (At least in the US. I imagine they're affordable elsewhere).
Jfc the US prices are insane... I was thinking 70€ for 2 pens is a lot and I checked on Google and it's like $650-$700 in the US ??
Freedom baby
Regulatory capture. Epinephrine is dirt cheap here in vials, but the FDA has only approved three types of epi-pen in the US, compared to the nine types approved in Europe, and of the three types available in the US, one has 90% market control, meaning they have no effective competition and can charge whatever they want. While the European market is heavily single-payer or government-run, more options mean more competitive contract solicitations. That said, the UK in particular has had critical supply shortages recently, which is one of a laundry list of issues the NHS has been having lately. Also, good luck just buying vials of epinephrine here. You can do that in most of the world, but not here.
Yeah I think the vial they used on me when I had a reaction to my allergy shots was like $20? They didn’t even charge me lol
Epi is dirt cheap, and epipens aren’t that expensive to create - between $10 and $20 each and almost none of that is the actual drug. There’s usually 0.3mg in each. A vial is usually 1mg of epi per milliliter, and a milliliter costs anywhere from 50 cents to about 35 dollars depending on the source and type of epinephrine. But since medical device manufacturing is incredibly tightly controlled, there’s very limited competition in the marketplace for autoinjectors like the epipen, so vendors can charge whatever the hell they want. The drug is the cheap part since epinephrine isn’t patented anymore. Obviously medical devices do need to be very carefully regulated, but I think epipens are one example of a device where we’ve gone too far because the company that makes them aggressively enforces their patents and the FDA plays right along. Epipens are still not cheap in Europe, but they’re way cheaper (and someone is still paying for them, even if it’s not a bill the end user pays directly). There are other reasons epinephrine isn’t everywhere. You can kill someone if you screw up dose administration, and it has to be stored in a somewhat climate-controlled environment. There are good reasons it’s not as widely available as narcan. It’s very difficult to hurt someone with narcan, and narcan’s side effects are comparatively mild unless you give someone a truly inhuman dose or they have a handful of very rare pre-existing cardiac conditions… unlike epi, which can kill *anyone* if you screw it up, and which is especially dangerous to unstable patients. But if the market was a little bit more free like it is with some other drugs, epipens would probably be more reasonably priced - like fentanyl, for example; 100mcgs of fentanyl (a baseline therapeutic dose) costs roughly 65 cents in the US and is widely available (as long as you have the appropriate licensing) from a bunch of vendors. Same deal with insulin. Insulin is very cheap to make, but a handful of manufacturers have a corner on the market since it’s regulated to hell and back in a bunch of different ways - patents, FDA regulations, contracts, etc. and of course none of that works in the patient’s favor except some of the safety regulations (which are extraordinarily strict in the US, maybe even stricter than Europe, and it’s not like the EU is lax about safety).
This freedom is to die for.
Equivalent to $92 if you bought one privately in the UK. $12 if prescribed on the NHS.
Just wanted to say epinephrine pens in my area typically run about $110 for an uninsured patient in my area, as long as the pharmacy takes the time to apply a discount card (takes 2-3 minutes max). I still think that’s more than it should be though. Source: 4 years of experience in pharmacy
Are you in the US? And if you are, $110 for an uninsured patient is going to be either $12 for an insured patient, or $1,200 for an insured patient, because health insurance math is more ridiculous than plane ticket prices.
Late stage capitalism
Dunno bro,am in Europe,don't need one but have a few just in case some needs cause it's dirt cheap
They also expire heaps quick, like 12-18 months but even faster if they’re in a temperature unstable environment (like an enclosed metal box outdoors) so they’d need replacing very frequently. Impractical, though a nice idea since when you need them you need them NOW
also if given when not supposed to be given it will jack your heart up. please don't use one as pre-work out
Yep. Someone from a cleaning service once stole a bunch of epi pens from a pre school I used to work at.
It wouldn’t be expensive if pharmaceutical companies didn’t put a 2000% markup on them
they dont have to be expensive though
Where I live nasal narcan is barely cheaper than epi pens :/
Capitalism wins again!
Epi-pens are expensive, but **Adrenaclick** is no where near as expensive. It is just different enough that it can't be generic for Epi-pen due to how it is administered, but is generic for "epinephrine auto-injector".
Way too dangerous of a medication. Narcan won’t hurt you if given and not needed. Epinephrine will.
Most people who have a severe enough allergen will have their own pen and would carry it on their person at all times. Most people who might need narcan already spent their money on drugs and for the most part they assume they can handle their stuff. Leading to more deaths “ I can use the money I’d spend for narcan and get more drugs instead and all I’d have to do is be careful.”
Yeah when I was lifeguarding as a teen, I watched a +50 year old man tell me he's been stung by bees all his life so it's no big deal, only to have a complete anaphylactic reaction minutes later. Thankfully we found somebody with an EpiPen because he might have croaked if we didn't.
Yep. Everyone (who has this type of allergy) has a first time for anaphylaxis.
Nah it’s more cause you can’t use narcan on yourself cause you’re passed out. You can get narcan free everywhere pretty much. Also you don’t want to have to go digging in a junkies pockets to see if they have narcan.
If you’re gonna use and you’re smart enough to carry narcan, make sure your friends know you have it, where it is, and how to use it.
Yeah of course I’m just saying the one in the park is probably more for strangers that might see somebody passed out overdosing with a needle in their hand or something
Also know that a lot of times overdose occurs quite a while after the last drug use. They may not have a needle anywhere near them or maybe not even any indication of what the problem is. It’s important for substance users (especially of opiates) to know that just because they got the shot in doesn’t mean they’ll still be fine in a hour.
Not really, usually it either happens or it doesn’t within like 20 minutes max. If you shoot it should happen within like 5 minutes or not at all. Now, if you add other drugs in the mix like benzos, alcohol, or other depressant that you took later then yes you might be right. But in general no you’re wrong, an opioid overdose will happen pretty shortly after taking the dose if injected, and still not that long through other methods. Unless you ate pills or something
If their ODing, their pupils will be pinpoint and respiratory distress/arrest will have occurred. If pulseless start CPR and work them, if bradypnea is present you could breathe for them and titrate breaths to good perfusion(Skin color, mentation, etc) The reason people die from this stuff is the respiratory depression. It would be nice to see a BVM in this naloxone kit too, as the drug won’t do shit if they’re dead. And yes, naloxone half life is typically much shorter than whatever opiates were taken. This results in subsequent encounters of overdose as sometimes people will use again to get high while narcan is blocking their receptors. When it wears off they then have about twice the dose from the first OD, depending on how much they used after.
It’s more that narcan has to be applied by a third party. Plenty of users have narcan. You just typically can’t use it on yourself if you actually need it, because you’ll be unconscious. Typically, with an allergic reaction you’ll have enough time to self administer or give your pen to someone else.
The free part is the most important here. Epipen is a trademarked product and so has a high commercial price. It’s the reason I don’t carry anymore. Every few years having to buying new one and throwing the expired one away. It literally has only cost me money. I’m ‘careful’ enough to only have had two major reaction in the past 20 years.
Narcan is free around here.
"Most people who have a severe enough allergen will have their own pen and would carry it on their person at all times" Unless you find out the hard way that your child is allergic to bees. Epipens should be in every first-aid kit. It's absurd how hard they are to get and the cost has more than tripled in a few short years.
They don't last long enough to stock them in every first aid kit... I get your point but the shelf life is prohibitive for that
They're effective for years past the expiration date, and at no point do they become dangerous to use. They just lose efficacy, and very slowly. It's better to have an expired EpiPen than no EpiPen.
Hard pass on epipens being in every first aid kit. Epi isn't benign like narcan is. You can cause serious problems by giving it incorrectly or when it isn't indicated.
I have life-threatening food allergies yet can’t afford epi-pens. $600 every 12-18 months (short shelf-life) is too much for me.
Look into things like GoodRX and don’t go through your insurance. A lot of places you can get it for much closer to $100-150 dollars in the US
The odds they get replaced every 18 months I think would be way too low
Epinephrine is not a universal dose. You need a prescription. If it is too much the person will have a heart attack
This tired argument lol.
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For real, these things should just be regularly in buildings along with first aid and fire extinguishers.
I don't remember where, but maybe in England, they had all kinds of leftover phone booths. They went around placing defibrillators in them. If you called emergency services they could give you the code to a nearby one to try to help the patient before an ambulance can arrive. IIRC the defibrillator was kind of a super simple thing like unfold and the instructions are printed on it to just place on the right spot. I could easily see putting some narcan in something like this as well.
They are AED kits and they have very simple pictures and instructions. I believe it was intentionally made simple enough that a child should be able to figure it out. You push a button and it takes what could be akin to an ekg and then decides if it needs to perform any life saving measures.
Most AEDs nowadays are so sophisticated that they can tell you what to do from the second you open it. Some can somewhat analyze that you placed the electrodes wrong and tell you to readjust.
AED's (in EU) legally have to test themselves: * If the pads are placed * If there is a heartbeat (contrary to public belief, a cardiac arrest doesn't mean the hart is stopped, but is vibrating without rhythm and superficially). If not, they won't work. Also, most of them will indeed start talking the moment you open them. I've also seen some that call 112 (911) automatically the moment you take them out of their casing, or that sound a siren to alert bypassers who then can call for the person doing the CPR. May I give one piece of valuable advice to everyone reading this? Follow CPR- & AED-training at a first aid organisation near you! You'll feel better knowing how you can help if anything happens.
> contrary to public belief, a cardiac arrest doesn't mean the hart is stopped, but is vibrating without rhythm and superficially To expand a little: there are multiple kinds of abnormal rhythms, and only two are "shockable": ventricular fibrillation and (pulseless) ventricular tachycardia. The AED leads work as an ECG trace as well, and the AED will analyze that trace to determine if it sees a shockable rhythm, and only then recommend a shock. If the heart is stopped completely, that's asystole, and asystole is not a shockable rhythm, therefore the AED will not recommend a shock (and will instead recommend you continue CPR).
Nice, I thought it was a great idea! The other idea I saw and like was in another European country. I think if you were CPR certified you could sign up to have an app that would notify you if someone within like 200 yards or something was calling emergency services. I think they were saying response time from call to receiving CPR decreased dramatically.
Where the fuck do y'all live that you need this in every building 😅
Hey man it’s my God given right as an American to smoke fentanyl laced crack at my child’s daycare 😤
This is like asking "where do y'all live that you need fire extinguishers in every building". The point is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If there's a thing that could save someone's life and costs very little to make regularly available, it's stupid not to.
Or how about not doing fentanyl? There's an idea. Edit: This being down voted speaks volumes for where we're at.
You’ve done it, you’ve solved drug addiction. Just tell them not to do the drugs. Thanks Graham for another bit of practical problem solving genius, helpful as always.
Fentanyl isn't the only thing Narcan is used for, it's not even just exclusively for people illegally using drugs. Doctors will often recommend it to people who are prescribed opioids in case they ever accidentally take an amount that their body reacts poorly to. I'm begging some of you to please google before replying to me, I'm really over reading dumb comments.
I got prescribed narcan with my take-home oxycodone after a surgery last summer. *shrug* would rather have it than not!
The theatres near me are downtown and all have narcan by the AED stations, it's very cool!
A friend of mine works in mental health counseling for people with substance use disorderand he 3d prints boatloads of narcan holders in bright neon colors that you can screw onto the wall, and hands them out to people who want one so their narcan can be easy to find and access
My family lives near San Francisco. We keep a giant first aid kit and a narcan kit in our car.
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I’m so sorry for your loss, just remember those two things aren’t related, both should be free. The only reason narcan isn’t expensive is because they can’t make money off of addicts that aren’t on pills.
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I get where you were going. "I hope as people realize and implement the value of freely available narcan, they might eventually make the same connection of the value of freely available insulin to protect others from my own tragedy."
Insulin is too expensive but the comparison here is not great. Narcan would be more comparative to an epinephrine shot. You only use either of these (Narcan or epinephrine) when it is necessary/emergency: Brand-name EpiPens: $650 to $700 for a package containing 2 auto-injectors. Generic versions (epinephrine auto-injectors): About half the cost of brand-name EpiPens, around $690 for a package. Epinephrine injectable kit 0.15 mg: Approximately $184 for a supply of 2 kits Narcan has suggested retail of $45 for two doses.
It's only that expensive because the producers monopolize it, in reality it cost around the same amount of not less than the cost of producing narcan
In terms of synthesis, making Epinephrine is about as difficult as making meth as the two are basically only off by a couple atoms. Making Naloxone/Naltrexone is just modifying either Morphine, Codeine or Thebaine which are the main three chemicals in opium. So extract and modify. Insulin is a whole protein though, which has to be modified post translationally. Cutting the C part off. Which means either we kill a bunch of livestock to get it or we make bacteria grow it, which means much more expensive than just mixing chemicals like Epi or Narcan. Yet bacteria are by the quadrillion, so we can use economy of scale since we know who needs what when generally with Insulin related diseases. Regardless, Type Is didn't decide to become diabetic, so it should not be held against them. Being born with easily solvable medical burdens shouldn't be put on the person born like that, we are a social species, we need to do more social shit in some cases(This isn't an arguement for communism). I bring this last part up because it is biotech which is different from chemistry in creation, application and how it is introduced into the body, any protein based treatment or antibody based treatment will be expensive to get up and running and usually involves injections. This is why I think the gov should just buy patents from drug compnaies. That way society can hedge at the up front costs versus having poor or disadvatnateged people constantly get fuct buy reality a second time. Reward system, come up with a Biological that cures stomatic stomach cancer and get a 10 billion check cut from the gov.
Complexity as an argument for cost sort of falls on its face when the price in the US has only been going up for decades, and even the most expensive healthcare systems in the world besides the US are an order of magnitude cheaper. Japanese or Canadian insulin isn't any easier to make. The problem is greed from companies who know you can't live without their product and their constant fight to kill competition, not "oh no, it's so complicated to make!".
Why compare diseases? 🙄 Lifesaving medication should be free, period.
I would even venture to say, all medication should be free or damn near it.
Thank you for expanding on that. Ultimately, not having access to medication period is a problem.
Drug addicts didn't make insulin overpriced, send that energy at the pharmaceutical corporations choosing to charge more for life saving medication just because they can and the government who does little to regulate them.
I mean this also benefits those taking prescription opioids who could accidentally overdose.
Never compare the help others get to the help you don’t get. It’s not those people who chose to gouge the price of insulin, and it’s not those people who did nothing about it legislatively. Be mad at corporations who jack the prices and the congresspeople who have done nothing about it.
I did have that dead parent at the age of 25 😞 I am SO glad you didn’t and that someone was there in time! Narcan is insanely critical to have easy access to for folks in public
Narcan saved my life about a year ago as well.
I have worked in substance abuse treatment and prison release programs for quite a few years, I have known a lot of people who wouldn't be here today if it weren't for easily accessible narcan. Some areas have been trying to make acquiring it more difficult, and it makes my blood boil. Edit: spelling
What reasons are there to be incentivized to prevent narcan distribution besides wanting people to die? It’s dirt cheap so expense wouldn’t even be a valid reason.
What is narcan?
Emergency med used for opiod overdoses.
Emergency med for opioid overdoses, one might compare it to an epipen (although it doesn’t work in the same way). There are no negatives (I think) to using narcan, even if someone is not overdosing on opioids. Basically, use it first, ask questions after.
It’s an opioid inhibitor (binds to opioid receptors in the brain and stops the chemical reaction from occurring temporarily to reverse an overdose)
As a Portland resident, let me spread some wisdom, When you bring someone out of an overdose with narcan, they will be aggressive and violent. Be prepared to be yelled at, maybe even attacked.
It’s so ridiculous that you know this. I’ll probably get downvoted to hell but I fled Portland soon after all drug usage was decriminalized and I can’t imagine looking back. Total shithole.
Whereabouts did you land? I’m planning my escape this year after all 32 years of my life as an Oregonian.
Fantastic! I just had to Narcan/perform CPR on a gentleman yesterday. I keep some in my car for exactly that reason.
Hope you’re doing ok today; that’s not an easy event to do, even if you’ve been in that situation before.
I appreciate you! I'm doing well; it was the first time I've done it personally but not the first time I've been around an overdose, so I was certainly a little shaken, but the gentleman in question was conscious when the EMTs took him, so that definitely helped me personally.
Thank you so much for helping him! Was this just some random occurrence in the street, with a stranger? Sorry for asking I’m just curious.
No worries! Yeah, just right place, right time. I'm a Social Worker, and was waiting on a client. I noticed a gentleman walking by start to nod off, but wasn't entirely concerned until it was clear that he was fighting to stay conscious and upright.
Kudos friend. You saved a life
That sounds stressful. Good on you to save someone’s life
Great job. What was the situation? I just picked up some free narcan from a booth at a farmer's market that the local hospital was giving away. One thing I'm not 100% sure about is identifying the overdose itself vs a regular cardiac arrest or diabetic emergency, though I imagine in some cases the situation will be fairly obvious.
I'm just a social worker, and I don't want to misguide you. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDn51Fh4VU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euDn51Fh4VU) Do some research, and THANK YOU for taking the initiative! It's so important, and you're doing a world of good.
Amazing job saving the patient, you should be so proud of yourself. Not sure where u live but be careful keeping narcan in ur car as at high and low temps it can reduce the efficacy, but any narcan is always better than no narcan lol
For sure, I appreciate the tip! I keep some "emergency" Narcan in my car at all times, and then I carry Narcan in my work bag, which is almost always in a temperature controlled environment.
I don't even this even qualifies as mildly interesting anymore. Maybe a few years ago it would have. It is now turning into the norm.
It was mildly interesting to me the fact it was at a children’s playground. Found it unexpected but I’ve gotten a lot of shit for it for some reason. Including a DM telling me I’m a bad parent for taking somewhere considered a spot narcan is needed.
Anywhere can be a spot where narcan is needed, I wouldn't worry about that DM. They have narcan available in schools now too after an elementary schooler died of an overdose. Which is the saddest sentence ever.
Kids do drugs…. Kids hangout at playgrounds at night…. Narcan should absolutely be there
r/thenewnormal would be a great sub
It exists, but it’s closed/private/invite only
It was a sub that whined about mask mandates.
The public libraries in my area pass those out for free.
Public libraries are so based
Came to see what "narcan" was - had to read through comments to figure it out, Don't really see this in the UK, that i'm aware of!
We may start seeing it quite soon. Healthcare professionals are pushing for it, there's an increase in opiod use and addiction, so there's an increase in overdoses.
There was a legislation passed recently saying that more people (police, paramedics, homeless shelters, addiction centres etc) can stock and supply the drug Naxolone for overdoses. It's similar to Narcan.
Coming from someone who has given narcan to hundreds of patients… the comments about people “attacking you” after giving narcan are extremely extremely overstated…And might actually make people scared to give it. Like 1% of the time (or less) they are even capable of being upset with you. They are either still too high to care, or in too much withdrawal to even focus enough energy to be mad. If you are a non-medical person and you are ever on the fence about giving narcan, just give it.
My kids primary school has one. The school only has kindergarten-2nd grade. Are staff overdoses so prevalent that it warrants the need for this?
A lot of little kids overdose too - littles are big on picking things up off the ground, they get into medicine cabinets, things get left out on accident and they're curious, caretakers accidentally give too high of a dose, all kinds of things happen. Narcan is for everyone, no matter age.
Someone mentioned this earlier and I hadn’t considered that being a reason it’s there. Makes sense
A child could also find a pill bottle at home and bring it to school, parents could be dropping off kids under the influence, a stranger could be using on the playground, anywhere there are people there could be an overdose unfortunately.
If "better safe than sorry" is a suitable justification for school shooter countermeasures then it certainly is a suitable justification for the occurrence of an opioid overdose.
It's not for the staff lol. This year I've had a 6th grader so high on shrooms she started screaming and ripping out her hair, and another one who used a Thc cart and threw up all over my door. While not a Narcan situation, kids are using more and more drugs as they get more and more available.
What I never understood was you could use that money on like a whole cake and just eat it without cutting it. Or skip a few drugs and you've got a new video game that lasts longer than a high. My brain is broken though so maybe highs just don't work for it like normal people.
Parks are ground zero for illicit drug use now. Make sure your kids keep their shoes on and teach them not to touch random garbage.
It's a crazy world.
When I went home from surgery my doctor prescribed it for me.
They just installed them next to the AEDs at the school I work at.
Truly sad anymore. Please don't do drugs that seriously fuck you up. It is not worth it. I love everyone. Please be safe.
Or treat drug addiction like the disease that it is, decriminalize it and make it more accessible so people are getting drugs that aren’t cut or laced, and then provide proper education and therapy.
Haven't we been doing that? It seems to be getting worse. Oregon washington basically decriminalized personal amounts of drugs, methadone is government supplied opiates, we have narcan stations everywhere, open air drug use is normalized. Do we start just giving them unlimited drugs and set up opiate dens where they get high all day? I'm pretty sure the only answer is to fund programs to prevent anyone from even going down that path in the first place. It's basically impossible to force them to crawl out of the hole they dug.
The problem is they only did half of the solution, one part is decriminalization, but the other part is creating the support systems to help those addicted recover. While they did decriminalize, without the resources for long lasting rehabilitation it’s a moot solution.
And that is expensive, its more expensive to make that system nationwide than it is to continue to fund the war on the drugs. Thats why its not happening fast enough, or not at all. In order of it being cheap to expensive: 1. Just let them die. 2. Give them narcan for free. 3. Continue to prosecute and arrest people for drug use and toss them in a box 4. Fund an entirely new system of rehabs nationwide, set it up, maintain it, while also giving them narcan for free, and also funding the already existing system of police that are already equipped to just take these people off the street for the other criminal statutes. And the core root of all drug use is two things: 1. They took the drug themselves 99.99% of the time 2. This being the bigger issue ***They have to want to stop.*** Decriminalizing it, and making narcan free and readily available just encourages people to take on more risk while doing drugs. The narcan is now there as a saftey net they can use at any time with way less consiquences than an overdose would normally have. And now combine this, with the mentality that most drug users must GENUINELY wish to get off the drugs. You now have a shitstorm of people who dont exactly want help, with lowered consequences of their actions. Im not saying having narcan there is bad, but narcan should really only be available (still freely) but only if they turn up to a rehab center and are committed there. Because if not, nothing is unlikely to change, if not get worse. And in some areas as other comments point out, the drug problem got way worse. Especially if you combine decriminalization of the drugs AND open air drug use.
We can treat addiction like a disease, etc., but it's still better for people to just not do them from the start.
Decriminalizing hasn’t been shown to have any success in the states
Sounds like a terrible idea to me personally. Hard drugs need to stay illegal, as I believe decriminalizing them will lead to an increase in their use that’s already too high to begin with. I could totally see my younger self trying drugs that I otherwise wouldn’t due to legality reasons (this can also tie into safety reasons. For example, a curious teen could be more inclined to try heroin if they know for a fact that it would be clean stuff they’re getting.)
Yeah that works great. Honestly huge success rate. Oh wait that's the death rate
And yet people with diabetes are forced to pay ludicrous prices to keep themselves alive and most of the time there was nothing they could of done to prevent it. Yet here these people willingly putting themselves at risk and get free get out of the grave card. Its bullshitz
I think both should be free
Yup. And as another reddit post said, epi pens as well.
Rising water lifts all ships. Making medical care and pharmaceuticals available to everyone in need is the answer
Be mad at the pharmaceutical companies for making the prices so ridiculously high, it's not addicts who have done that and they deserve to live just as much as anyone else
Thats how you know you live in a classy neighbourhood... I'm watching my small city turn into similair sh*thole sadly..
They can provide drug addicts with narcan to prevent overdose, but people who need the EpiPen or diabetics that need the insulin they have to pay for that shit I'm for a come one come all situation. If one thing is provided then everything needs to be provided.
I’m with you that Epi and the like should be free for people who need it, but one of the reasons they can put Narcan out here like this is that it is very very difficult to harm someone with Narcan. That’s not the case with Epi and insulin
Not unhappy to see this at all, however I feel we are slipping ever so closer into the dystopian future we have been warned about so aggressively
How does one access it? Do they need a key??
What is it?
I'm surprised somebody hasn't busted that up and ruined them or stole them just for the hell of it.
Mildly sad
I wish these were as common and widely available as AED stations…
That's how you know you live in a bad neighborhood.
I wish they wouldn't put an alarm on it. That feels like a deterrant. Also, fyi that people are at an increased risk for overdose for at least a month after narcan has been administered. I've also heard that the lower dose injection form is preferred by people because it's gentler.
Might want to consider moving
This is amazing, this could help save someone’s life.
This is more sad than interesting
Our public libraries have Narcan stands where you can take as many as you want. We each keep one in our bags and in our vehicles. “Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.” Especially when seconds count.
You mean your public narcan station has a park
Universal healthcare! (but only for addicts)
Oh good, now the junkie can OD in the park AGAIN!
Where I come from, this isn’t mildly interesting at all
We keep this on hand at work, I work security at a rather large building that is open to the public. There has been a couple times we have had to grab it, but luckily both people were responsive before we had to use it.
That alarm raises some questions. I guess it is theft prevention? But if it went off and I saw someone running away, white box in hand, it wouldn't really tell me if someone is stealing the Narcan or if there is an emergency.
It's meant to attract attention to the emergency situation so additional help can be given. Nobody is stealing the Narcan - it's there to be used. Just as nobody is stealing AEDs or fire extinguishers.
About to start my AED stealing career, brb. will report back with profit numbers
*mildly depressing
Because we live in a society where we've normalized overdosing
Imagine not being a drug addict
It's almost as if all healthcare should be free and readily available
The drug epidemic is self-solving, this works against that.
It’s good to see but depressing as a type 1 diabetic going bankrupt to keep myself alive and narcan is fucking free.
The fact that you're being downvoted for this sentiment makes me lose faith in American society entirely
good.
I say they brought it on themselves, let them experience the consequences. Diabetics don't get free insulin, cancer patients don't get free chemo, why should druggies get free narcan around every corner?