WORLD | Calls for opioid antidotes grow amid increase in overdoses | Margaret Tazioli | June 1,...

This article attracted my attention. At the end of April, the body of a 31-year-old navy veteran who rented the bottom floor of my son who lives near Martinsburg, WV was dumped off in his bed just before his girlfriend showed up to check on him. Because there was a needle hole in his arm and all his possessions were taken off the over-worked police force wrote it off an another drug overdose. they are dealing with drug deaths per day. Over the next two weeks two young men my sons grew up with died of heroin overdoses - there is a mix of heroin and some poison which has killed 79 as of a few weeks ago in this region. From what I learned the area around Martinsburg, WV VAMC is infested with drugs. While not everybody is using or dealing it seems to be the veterans who have been part of the drug rehab program that are the main culprits.
I have been prescribed opioids for pain but I rarely use them.
"Calls for opioid antidotes grow amid increase in overdoses
HEALTH
By MARGARET TAZIOLI
Posted June 1, 2016, 04:48 p.m.
Every day, more than 1,000 people get emergency room treatment for misusing prescription pain relievers. Opioid overdoses surpassed car accidents in 2008 as the leading cause of accidental death in America among people aged 25-54, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some who died would still be alive if more police officers carried an easy-to-administer antidote.
Opioids are manmade morphine-based prescription pain relievers—the strong kind. The larger family of opiates includes naturally sinister drugs like heroin. With opioid addiction now a national epidemic, doctors are making progress in prevention (better monitoring of prescriptions) and rehab, but first responders need an antidote to what might otherwise be a fatal dose of morphine-based drugs (including OxyContin, Oxycodone, Methadone, and heroin).
Small organizations like the Chicago Recovery Alliance (CRA) have been distributing an antidote, naloxone, since 1997, and some doctors have used it since 1971.
“Naloxone is the perfect antagonist to any and all opiates … a pure antidote,” CRA director Dan Bigg told Joshua Lyon, author of Pill Head. Unlike many others antidotes, naloxone has no potential for abuse because it does not make a person high.
Harm reduction centers such as CRA or the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition (NCHRC) have typically distributed the antidote directly to users and their family members. But Lyons notes one problem: Some see harm reduction centers as “needle exchange programs for heroin addicts,” and the stigma surrounding them—if they’re located in “the bad part of town”—prevents some middle- and upper-class addicts and their family members from receiving the required training and antidote prescriptions.
NCHRC argues all first responders should carry Narcan, a naloxone-based nasal spray, and some police departments across the state now have it. Police in Fayetteville, who started using it in April 2015, and Greenville, since December 2014, already have saved numerous lives. Asheville firefighters have carried Narcan kits in their trucks since October 2014: On average they administer five Narcan doses per month.
Life-saving success via Narcan has led some to point to another problem: Will widespread distribution of antidotes give addicts a false sense of security, believing a safety net exists, albeit one with gaping holes? Advocates say no: Addicts tend to take whatever they have to gain the next high, without assessing the danger rationally." COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. LTC (Join to see) Capt Christopher Mueller Capt Seid Waddell SMSgt Minister Gerald A. Thomas SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSG Steven E. SSG Leo Bell PO2 Ed C. SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Forrest Stewart SGT John " Mac " McConnell SGT Robert Hawks SGT Robert George SrA Christopher Wright SPC Corbin Sayi Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM