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. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom