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Naloxone Accessible in New York

*Originally published August 8, 2017.*

An educational pamphlet and samples of naloxone, a drug used to counter the effects of opiate overdose, are displayed at a news conference at the fire station in Taunton, Mass., Monday, Feb. 24, 2014. A recent surge in heroin overdoses in Taunton has shed light on an epidemic that has plagued the state and nation. At the news conference, Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey outlined a three-pronged plan to address the opiate drug epidemic, calling for expansion of naloxone programs for first responders and bystanders, greater access to proven addiction treatments and modernizing America’s addiction treatment system. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

By Stefan Oliva SYRACUSE (NCC News) – Starting tomorrow, naloxone will be available in pharmacies statewide. Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses.

Before January 2016, it was only possible to get Naloxone with a prescription or through a registered opioid overdose prevention program. Making the drug more affordable adds to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s initiative early last year to make Narcan available in pharmacies without a prescription.

According to the press release from Cuomo’s office that came out this morning, people who have prescription coverage, including Medicaid and Medicare, will get up to $40 in co-pay assistance, which will either make the drug free or relatively cheap. Uninsured people and those without prescription coverage, however, can get the medicine for free through one of the state’s registered opioid overdose prevention programs.

There are 15 such programs in Onondaga County and Central New York has 50. Some of the programs on the list are also police departments, in which either some or all of the officers carry Narcan. According to Executive Director of the Central New York Emergency Medical Services, Susie Surprenant, emergency responders also play a crucial role. “When we can provide that care in the community, no matter what part of the region, that’s an important component,” she said.

Paul Smyth, manager of the Emergency Medical Services at Syracuse University, agrees.

“You’re there to help somebody,” Smyth said, “so it’s a good feeling to take somebody who is barely breathing because they’ve taken too much of an opiet and within minutes take them to…kind of awake.”

Listen to the re-recorded version of the story here. (c) Stefan Oliva 2020.
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Opioids: How Chemical Dependency Changed

The opioid crisis had a significant impact on how many admissions there were for chemical dependency treatment in Onondaga County. The numbers cannot be taken at face value because they do not consider the amount of people who were admitted to multiple programs or who were transferred out of state for treatment. The raw data include more than 65 thousand rows of statistics, starting from 2007 going to 2016, so I filtered it by only including inpatient rehabilitation for heroin and other opioids. The ages ranged from under 18 to 55 and older, with people between 18 and 34 being the most affected.

There are six types of general treatment programs and several sub categories. The other rehabilitation programs include crisis, opioid treatment, residential, outpatient and specialized. The main sub categories I looked at were medically supervised withdrawal for inpatients, medically managed detoxification and medically monitored withdrawal, among others. The data show that except for medically managed detoxification, the number of admissions went up significantly starting in 2013, peaking in 2016, which is when the opioid crisis started taking off in the United States and New York.

The numbers also support this trend locally because according to New York’s Health Department (page 67 of the report), outpatient emergency department visits in Onondaga County increased from 307 in 2015 to 482 in 2016, which is roughly 103 people out of every 100,000. The crisis has seen disturbing effects because opioid related deaths tripled in Onondaga County from 2012 to 2016, but went down 28 percent between 2016 and the beginning of last year.