Pubdate: Wed, 07 Sep 2016
Source: Northern Pen (CN NF)
Copyright: 2016 Northern Pen
Contact:  http://www.northernpen.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5016
Author: Barb Sweet
Page: A3

KITS COMBAT ODS	

Naloxone take-home antidote soon available

Dawne Smallwood's eyes filled with tears as she contemplated how a
recent announcement could have saved her son, Nathan.

"He just had a demon he could not beat," the St. John's woman said as
she stood on the steps of Confederation Building at a rally associated
with international overdose awareness day.

Smallwood said her son, 23, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in
April 2015.

"He was the most beautiful person," she said.

Five people in total died from a fentanyl-related death in 2015.
Fentanyl is said to be about 100 times more toxic than morphine,
heroin or oxycodone.

Those deaths might have been helped by a drug that Health Minister
John Haggie announced last week - naloxone, an antidote for opioid
overdose. The take-home kits will be made available province-wide
through outreach workers and the regional health authorities.

Smallwood urged opioid drug users to get one when they become
available and she said parents should take note that her son was from
a good family and it could happen to anyone.

"He was battling addictions for six years. Nothing seemed to work.
Finally drugs took his life," she said. "If he had this, and the
friends he was doing drugs with instead of leaving him there to die …
He would be with us today."

Haggie said the five fentanyl-related deaths in 2015 are equal to what
previously occurred over a 16-year period. And because of flaws in
data collection, there's no accessible data on how many people have
been hospitalized or permanently disabled because of fentanyl.

"Deaths are just the tip of the iceberg, the very tip," he told TC
Media.

"Five in a year compared to five in the previous 16 years," Haggie
said. "I don't want to be caught napping in a year's time when that
comes 10 or 15 if by something simple and relatively inexpensive we
can flatten that out. I think it was the right thing to do in my time.

"If it saves one or two lives I think it's an investment."

Naloxone is crucial as an onhand drug to combat opioid overdose where
a patient stops breathing - even with an ambulance response time
benchmark in the urban area of nine minutes.

"In a rural area where 15-29 minutes is acceptable, you would be dead
long before then," Haggie said.

There are other measures at play to try to combat the opioid
epidemic.

One is with PharmaNet coming Jan. 1, a mandatory online connection of
all pharmacies in the province. That online access should cut down the
number of prescribed opioids as doctors will see how they compare to
their peers. It should also prevent patients from obtaining duplicate
prescriptions, Haggie said.

Such prescription-monitoring measures could reduce the amount of
opioids on the street by 30-50 per cent, he said.

The province is also looking at legislation to establish secure detox
for minors.

And it's considering adopting a replacement for the opioid addiction
treatment drug methadone with suboxone, which among its benefits, is
not addictive. That requires regulatory change.

When OxyContin came on the market years ago it was touted to doctors
as a miracle pain reliever. But it swiftly became recognized as highly
addictive, and subsequently highly lucrative when obtained and sold on
the street by drug dealers and users.

"The physicians were sold a bill of goods," Haggie said of the
marketing by the drug manufacturer.

Now OxyContin is available as neoOxys, a form less desirable in the
drug culture. But even if the prescription drug overuse is cut down,
it's not the end of the problem, Haggie said.

Fake oxys are manufactured in illegal drug labs around the country as
little green monsters.

"Because people are making these things in sheds by the thousands and
they look like Oxys. They have the right colour and everything. They
could have anything in them - you just don't know," Haggie said.

He noted in other jurisdictions that have controlled the widespread
overuse of prescription opioids, drug dealers have stepped up the
manufacture and distribution of Fentanyl, heroin and W-18, a designer
opioid said to be even more powerful than Fentanyl.

With $180,000, about 1,200 naloxone kits will be distributed to target
populations by the regional health authorities and the Safe Works
Access Program (SWAP), Haggie announced.

SWAP is operated by the AIDS Committee of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Kits will be provided free of charge. They will include naloxone,
single-use syringes, a pair of latex gloves, alcohol swabs, a one-way
rescue breathing barrier mask and a step-by-step instruction pamphlet.
It is anticipated that kits will be ready for distribution early this
fall.

NDP St. John's Centre MHA Gerry Rogers said Haggie's announcement was
good news.

"It's so rare we have a goodnews story in Newfoundland and Labrador
right now around addictions," Rogers said. "I am really supportive of
this great move."

Rogers said doctors and activists who called for the naloxone to be
made available should be praised.

Naloxone was deregulated by the federal government in July, meaning it
could be made available without a prescription. Haggie said the holdup
for this province was availability of the right form of the drug.
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MAP posted-by: Matt