If you overdose on drugs and you make it to a paramedic or a hospital in time, somebody might give you a dose of a drug called naloxone that can block the overdose and save your life. But each year, about 22,000 Americans don’t get that drug in time. Either they are alone or the other people with them are too high to get help.
So some cities are distributing do it yourself overdose kits.
Advocates also note that the drug, which has been used for decades in emergency rooms and ambulances, is safe. Naloxone reverses a high by blocking the brain’s opioid receptors, where drugs like heroin and narcotic painkillers bind. According to Daliah Heller, an assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Health, who is involved with the city’s naloxone program, serious side effects from the drug (aside from triggering withdrawal symptoms in addicts) are extremely rare. But they’re not unheard of: in rare instances, high doses of naloxone have caused seizures, but, says Heller, “It’s much more deadly for [overdose victims] not to have the naloxone.”
In part, that’s because few overdose victims get immediate medical treatment. While most overdoses take place in the presence of other people (surveys of heroin users suggest that 58% to 86% were not alone when overdose occurred), many bystanders don’t call the authorities for help, usually because they’re high themselves. Naloxone kits can be crucial in these circumstances.
So a patient starting, say, a methodone program, will be given training and a kit to take home.
