Ohio Town Proposes A 3 Strikes Law for Narcan Use On Opiate Overdoses

Everything y'all have said that made you stay on a forward path seems to all come back the fact that you, your folks and good friends were vigilant. If only the strays that always seem to cost society the most and are most prevalent in the news had the same love and direction as y'all.....
 

hauntedtexan said:
Everything y'all have said that made you stay on a forward path seems to all come back the fact that you, your folks and good friends were vigilant. If only the strays that always seem to cost society the most and are most prevalent in the news had the same love and direction as y'all.....
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I am one of six siblings. We all were raised in the same home, ours was a close knit,multigenerational family. Five of us while, while not building lily white incident free lives, non the less have been successful,raising children, paying our taxes, not being in need of any social programs, other than short term unemployment, owning property,and in one case a highly profitable business.


Except one brother. He has never held a normal job, probably at 60 years has not worked enough quarters for social security. Is addicted to alcohol,uses other illicit drugs to excess, has been in and out of jail and prison.


He was raised with the same strict but loving family as the rest of us. Why the difference? Some folks are just broken,but that doesn't make them trash!
 
I think it's important to keep in mind that not all users are addicts. Some are dependents. Big difference. Some want to quit, but can't due to being dependent. Anyone that has taken, (let's say), a morphine based narcotic like Percocet for any length of time, like maybe 60 days, will more than likely find them self unable to just stop taking the drug due to the drug's over-powering addiction or dependency ability.

I knew of a man that had some serious back surgeries and was on pain meds for months and then decided it was time to quit taking the pills. His body would not allow him to just quit. So, he ended up in a rehab facility and was detoxed and then had the choice of either staying in the facility for another 28 days or returning three days a week for his medication as they weaned him off of the drugs.

These drugs like, Percocet, Vicodin, Dilauded, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Fentanyl, Hydromorphone are all very popular drugs that are used as pain killers, but are very, very addictive. They are also stepping stones to the king of drugs, Heroin. Right now, we are at an all time high of having Heroin addicts here in the U.S. It is estimated that we have over a million Heroin users here in the U.S. To say that we have lost the war on drugs would be an under statement.

Drug addicts and those that are dependent on using the drugs will eventually find them self in a rehab facility. After being detoxed off of their drug, they are usually given a substitute drug named, "Suboxone." Suboxone contains two drugs, one of which is Naloxone. Naloxone blocks the effect of any opioid medication. It is very expensive, but given the alternative of continuing to use, it's really the better way to go. BTW, Naloxone is just another word for Narcan.

I feel bad for those people that have become addicted or dependent to opiates because they used them while recuperating from an injury that was accompanied by severe pain and was prescribed an opiate and used it log term to the point where they became dependent on the drug.
 

Robusta said:
I am one of six siblings. We all were raised in the same home, ours was a close knit,multigenerational family. Five of us while, while not building lily white incident free lives, non the less have been successful,raising children, paying our taxes, not being in need of any social programs, other than short term unemployment, owning property,and in one case a highly profitable business.


Except one brother. He has never held a normal job, probably at 60 years has not worked enough quarters for social security. Is addicted to alcohol,uses other illicit drugs to excess, has been in and out of jail and prison.


He was raised with the same strict but loving family as the rest of us. Why the difference? Some folks are just broken,but that doesn't make them trash!
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I agree, it doesn't make them trash, and pretty sure you may never know why it went that way. Heck, scientists just uncovered a gene that causes someone to be a picky eater, what else will they find in the near future?
 
When I worked at the airline, they would randomly have drug checks on their employees. No one was exempt from having to pee into a bottle. Pilots down to baggage handlers were all subjected to being tested. If a person was flagged as having drugs in their urine, depending on what their job classification was, they would be offered a choice of either going to rehab or being terminated. As for a member of a flight crew being flagged, there was a zero tolerance for using and that person would be immediately terminated. After all, who wants to fly with a pilot that was using any drug? And, yes, we did have just a few people that were a part of a flight crew that was caught using. IMO, just having one person was too many.
 
But the town isn't paying for it. The Obama administration provided $181 million for narcan.
And it was after that (most probably because of that) that the price skyrocketed up (from $575).
And furthermore; that's not just for narcan. It's for a narcan administering device that audibly tells the user what to do.
Syringe injection narcan is $37.50 a dose. Police don't need to be told what to do more than a time or two.
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/575-life-saving-drug-jump-4500-blame-perverse-system/

What I think this law is going to do; Police get called to a situation. Police arrive on scene and evaluate the situation. They detect or suspect an opioid overdose. Now they need to ID the victim. Find his wallet or her purse. Find photo ID. Confirm it matches the victim. Call the station w/ the ID. Wait for someone to determine if the victim is eligible for narcan. Hope the people around don't demand that they "DO SOMETHING!!!". Hope the OD doesn't become fatal. Get the eligibility and administer narcan or call an ambulance (and hope the OD doesn't become fatal...).
 
I personally think such a law is an invitation for real or perceived abuse and HUGE lawsuits against the town. If the ambulance, police, or whoever are already on the scene, which they'd have to be to make such a determination, most of the expense of the situation has already been spent, and the $37.50 injection is peanuts in relation to the cost of dispatching people and equipment to the scene. I can see the headlines now: "Teenager Dies Because Police Refuse to Administer Life-Saving Antidote" and 412 lawyers and the ACLU would be lining up at the doorstep of the family.

Even if the law were fair and just (which I don't concede that it is), I wouldn't want to be the one who decides not to give the injection.
 

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