Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2014
Source: Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, PA)
Copyright: 2014 The Standard-Speaker
Contact:  http://www.standardspeaker.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1085
Page: C4
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/topic/naloxone

PA. SHOULD APPROVE OVERDOSE ANTIDOTE

Like every state in the Northeast, Pennsylvania has been in the 
throes of an opiate drug epidemic for several years. But unlike those 
other states, the commonwealth has not yet allowed emergency 
personnel a key tool that they could use to prevent overdose deaths.

Overdoses on heroin or prescription opiates often are deadly because 
they stop the user's breathing. An inexpensive, non-addictive, easily 
administered antidote called naloxone, or Narcan, is readily 
available. But in Pennsylvania, most first responders who initially 
handle an overdose patient - police, firefighters and emergency 
medical technicians - are not authorized by law to carry or 
administer the drug.

Before the current session of the state Legislature ends, lawmakers 
should follow the lead of 25 states - including New York, New Jersey, 
Delaware, Maryland and Ohio - by allowing first responders to carry 
and administer the life-saving antidote.

State law also limits naloxone prescriptions only to the person who 
would receive the drug - the very person who might not be able to 
administer it when it is needed. Lawmakers should change the law to 
allow prescriptions to be issued to family members.

The law also should include a "Good Samaritan" provision to exempt 
from liability people who administer the drug outside a hospital.

As they ponder means to limit the carnage of the opiate epidemic, 
legislators also should give some urgency to approving the use of 
marijuana for medical purposes, including pain relief.

A new study, led by a research team at the University of 
Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, indicates that marijuana 
often is an effective alternative for opiate analgesic pain 
relievers. About 60 percent of all deaths resulting from opioid 
analgesic overdoses occur in patients who have legitimate prescriptions.

The researchers examined state-by-state death rates caused by opioid 
overdoses between 1999 and 2010. On average, they found, the 13 
states allowing the use of medical marijuana had a 24.8 percent lower 
annual opioid overdose mortality rate after the laws were enacted 
than states without the laws.

Pennsylvania should not be an island in the sea of progress against 
opiate addiction. Lawmakers should authorize widespread access to 
naloxone and authorize the use of medicinal marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom