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Overdose-reversal drug starting to be available to more people
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Ohio has moved quickly in the past six months to provide greater access to the drug Naloxone, also known as Narcan, to reverse the effects of an overdose from opioids such as heroin.
In the fall, Ohio legislators allowed Lorain County to carry out a one-year pilot program that allowed police officers and other first-responders to carry the drug with them and administer it. Depending on how it worked out, officials considered extending it statewide.
In February, after only about three months, the Legislature approved a bill that did expand its use statewide for police officers and others, including addicts’ friends and family. Gov. John Kasich signed it into law in early March.
“Friends and family can get it. It allows for law enforcement and firemen and nontraditional first-responders to carry it and use it,” Portsmouth, public-health nurse Lisa Roberts said in an article in the Portsmouth Daily Times.
Portsmouth and Cleveland have been ahead of the rest of the state in providing Naloxone to the public. For several months, Naloxone kits have been available to addicts at the Portsmouth City Health Department, The Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland and the Cuyahoga County Board of Health in Cleveland.
In a presentation at last weekend’s Hope for Recovery from Addiction program at the Trumbull Career and Technical Center, Dr. Joan Papp of MetroHealth Center in Cleveland and the Free Medical Clinic there, said Mahoning Valley residents can come to the Free Medical Clinic when she’s there from 1 to 5 p.m. Fridays to receive a Naloxone kit to take home.
So far, the kits are available only to the addict. A kit contains two doses of Naloxone that can be administered easily as a nasal spray.
Roberts is featured in a video on the Ohio Department of Health website in which she instructs the public on how to identify an opiate overdose (shallow, erratic or stopped breathing; change in skin color; choking, snoring, gurgling sounds); and advises what to do.
She says Naloxone won’t hurt a person who isn’t having an opiate overdose, but it won’t help someone overdosing on drugs such as cocaine, Xanax, Valium, methamphetamine or alcohol.
Opiates that can be reversed with Naloxone include heroin, Vicodin, Percocet, OxyContin, Methadone, Fentanyl patches and Opana, said Dr. Ted Wymyslo, director of the Ohio Department of Health.
Besides administering Naloxone, the most important things to know about helping an opiate-overdose victim is to give them rescue breathing and call 911, Roberts and Wymyslo advise.
Ohio’s new law provides certain civil and criminal immunity for professionals who prescribe Naloxone under certain conditions, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
It also provides criminal and administrative immunity for law-enforcement officers and others who administer Naloxone under certain conditions, the ODH says.
Chief Deputy Dennis Cavanaugh of the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office said 510 Lorain County police officers have been trained in the use of Naloxone since the county pilot program began in November 2013, and 25 people have been revived using the drug since then. Two died despite the use of the drug.
The Lorain County Sheriff’s Office has a written policy for use of Naloxone that indicates the conditions under which they should administer the drug and other steps they should take. The training took about 30 to 40 minutes, including hands-on training, Cavanaugh said.
Lauren Thorp, project director for the Trumbull County Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention, said ASAP’s been trying to set up a program locally where Naloxone kits could be distributed, but it’s been unsuccessful so far.
The Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland, 12201 Euclid Ave., offers the kits from 1 to 5 p.m. Fridays.
More information is available at the Ohio Department of Health website at www.healthy.ohio.gov/vipp/drug/ProjectDAWN.aspx.