Here’s how Americans can get Naloxone to prevent opioid poisoning, save lives

By Bethany Blankley | The Center Square

Naloxone, the emergency treatment that’s proven to reverse opioid overdoses and fentanyl poisoning if administered quickly enough, is available in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

It’s accessible for free and low cost online, through a range of community organizations, and through pharmacies with and without a prescription and with or without insurance.

With fentanyl-laced drugs pouring through the southern border, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has issued a new public safety alert and several governors and attorneys general have issued warnings. But after reporting on a toddler nearly dying from fentanyl poisoning, The Center Square received numerous requests from readers about where and how to obtain Naloxone.

Wikimedia Commons/James Heilman

GoodRX Health provides information about where and how to obtain Naloxone for free or at a reduced cost at pharmacies by zip code. It also has a mobile app to help consumers locate the best prices and comparison shop.

Nationwide, individuals and organizations can access the life-saving drug through nextdistro.org/naloxone, the first statewide online and mail-based Naloxone distribution project in the country. The online mail-based harm reduction service was created “to reduce opioid overdose death, prevent injection-related disease transmission, and improve the lives of people who use drugs.”

Naloxone, and NARCAN, the brand nasal spray, can also be purchased at Naloxoneexchange.com for as low as $59, according to the site. It requires users to enter a physician’s name and NPI#.

All state health departments have information about Naloxone training programs and resources to acquire the drug, including free access. Several states and cities have rolled out NARCAN vending machines, the most extensive one is through Philadelphia’s public library system.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have “access laws or alternate arrangements in place that allow persons to obtain naloxone from a pharmacist without an individualized, in-person prescription,” Narcan.com reports. The majority of states and the District of Columbia have Naloxone standing orders, which allow adults to purchase the drug from a licensed pharmacy without a prescription, Rehabs.orgexplains. The majority of states have also authorized third-party prescriptions, meaning pharmacists and doctors can prescribe and dispense Naloxone.

GoodRX Health provides information about where and how to obtain Naloxone for free or at a reduced cost at pharmacies by zip code. It also has a mobile app to help consumers locate the best prices and comparison shop.

Having Naloxone on hand is “a good precaution,” the discount prescription drug website says, similar to having a fire extinguisher. You hope you won’t have to use it but if you do, having one on hand could save your life or someone else’s, it says.

Good RX Care also provides a prescription service online for individuals between the ages of 18 and 65 who live where Naloxone isn’t available through community-based distribution programs, which primarily assist drug users. The National Harm Reduction Coalition has published a map identifying where the programs are located nationwide.

“I would love to see everyone carry naloxone, Narcan, because you never know when you’re going to need it,” Dr. Mark Calarco says in an informational video produced by American Addiction Centers. In it, he explains how to identify if someone has had an overdose and shows how to administer the NARCAN nasal spray.

Most states have also passed Good Samaritan Laws, which vary widely. They generally grant immunity from lawsuits to those who prescribe Naloxone and who administer it to save someone they believe is overdosing, among other measures, according to an analysis by the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association.

Naloxone has proven to successfully reverse the effects of opioids and prevent someone who’s overdosed from dying by restoring their breathing, the National Institutes of Health reports. Signs of an overdose, according to NIH, include unconsciousness, small pupils, slow or shallow breathing, vomiting, inability to speak, faint heartbeat, limp arms and legs, pale skin, purple lips and fingernails.

On Tuesday, Emergent BioSolutions, which was first authorized to sell NARCAN Nasal Spray in 2015, announced the FDA had fast-tracked its application to sell the drug over the counter.

Greater access to Naloxone, law enforcement officers have told The Center Square, has the potential to save countless lives. It’s important to note that while Naloxone is successfully used in emergencies, it doesn’t replace emergency medical care, health officials warn. Emergency medical treatment is recommended immediately after receiving treatment.

Naloxone has been effective in treating fentanyl poisoning. The highly addictive synthetic opioid is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine.

Fentanyl poisoning is the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 years old, according to the CDC.

“Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing this country,” the DEA said in its latest public safety alert. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott argues President Joe Biden’s open border policies are fueling the fentanyl crisis. The precursors, which are made in China, are shipped to Mexico where cartels and their operatives manufacture illicit fentanyl. They then bring it into the U.S. through the southern border and distribute it nationwide.

Two milligrams, roughly the weight of a mosquito, and small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially lethal dose.

Since last March, Texas law enforcement officers alone have seized more than 352 million lethal doses, enough to kill everyone in the U.S.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/James Heilman

7 thoughts on “Here’s how Americans can get Naloxone to prevent opioid poisoning, save lives

  1. So, every household is allowed to have Naloxone. Yet, no one can have Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine prescribed under threat of license revocation and deemed misinformation. Even locked up the horsepaste, restricted access, and grilled as if you were trying to buy uranium. Go figure.

  2. “Having Naloxone on hand is “a good precaution,” the discount prescription drug website says, similar to having a fire extinguisher. You hope you won’t have to use it but if you do, having one on hand could save your life or someone else’s, it says.”

    They used the “fire extinguisher analogy” for something that is better to have and not need, rather than need and not have…too bad leftists dont acknowledge the same scenario for access to firearms by responsible, law-abiding citizens.

  3. How about instead of making more drugs easily accessible teach people that any drug that does not come from a prescription at your local pharmacy will kill you and if you take it you may die?!!! Actions have consequences we can’t save people who do not want to listen.

    • How about 3 strikes and you’re out?
      This is assuming they get treatment in between OD’s.
      So why spend money on treatment when you can keep reviving with NARCAN?
      Isn’t that insane?

      There is always a LIMIT (or UNLIMIT) on what a society can afford to help the helpless.
      That LIMIT is currently undefined for things like this.

      If there is a cost for UNLIMIT then we need to know and agree on what that UNLIMIT cost is.

      This is just part of the political process, but is affected by the MSM controlling the reality of the viewer.

      Mr. Musk has recently taken control of the reality knobs at Twitter.
      We shall see if this light spreads to other places like FB, Goog, etc.

      Let your progressive friends know they will be in for a bumpy ride…

      • Yirgach, I’ve got a better idea:
        How about we stop creating drug addicts!

        A good many of them are being created right in our schools.
        Many drug overdose deaths are really “Deaths Of Despair” because so many people cannot even figure out how to make it in this unnecessarily overly complicated world we now live in.
        We’ve got a terrible crisis of people self medicating today for a long list of reasons.
        People are working like dogs and wind up hurt and in pain.. the list of how drug addicts are being created is long– how about we look at this and stop it
        (starting with voting to stop it)

        • Laura,

          While I’m not sure we completely understand how drug addicts are “created”, it does appear to be genetic as well as cultural. The problem didn’t happen overnight and it will take quite a while to clean out the rot in our culture which contributes to the current sad state of affairs.

          Musk’s work at Twitter shows how a few individuals at the right place and time can wreck havoc in a society’s perception of reality. Much like Germany in the 1930’s but now with enhanced tech. Extend the house cleaning to FB and Goog (remove the Section 230 shield and sue the living sh* out of them), generate a few thousand indictments in the Government permanent staff, close the borders, remove the Marxists from the educational system, clean up the military, impeach most of the Executive branch and in a few short decades you might even make some progress.

          Did I miss anything?

          • Hi Yirgach,

            I think that many of us can explain how drug addicts are made.
            Go talk to the families of any of the gazillions of addicts there are today.

            New England is now crawling with drug addicts and there are many people here that watched just how it all started.
            And what is seriously being done about the drugs pouring into the nation and into our neck of the woods?
            I’d say just about nothing..and this is no accident.
            The border is wide open, the police are being defunded, demoralized and now they are in short supply.

            Much of this is about incredible levels of corruption..
            The drugs are pouring in here because it’s an incredibly lucrative economy that a whole lot of people are profiting off of..
            It’s big enough to serve as a motivation to rig an election to keep this all hidden and running as usual.

            We are enduring an incredible mental health crisis.. much of this is because life is now so damned hard that many people not only can’t figure out how to make it today, many are simply not prepared in our failing schools, many are not wired to take it all on and win..

            Add Big Pharma in there and what they’ve been up too.
            Add in the failure of our medical system. People are working like dogs and their bodies are in a great deal of physical pain.
            They have sometimes limited or no insurance, they don’t get good medical care.. they deal with it on their own because they have no choice. They wind up addicts.

            The schools are a flat out disaster.. many kids are being put on meds.
            I’m old enough to remember when many kids were put on Ritalin back in the 90s, Many of those kids went on to become addicts and a good many of them are dead today. All because they couldn’t sit there in silence in these classrooms and behave to some standard that someone wanted.
            School is an agonizing experience today for many kids..
            Many wind up self medicating from the experience.

            I cannot tell you how many meetings I sat in on and their stories started out “Well back when I was in school…………”

            Again, lets stop creating addicts.
            There is a whole lot today that is being done to human beings that is simply not working… the level of medications people are on, the level of mental illness, the level of addiction, the level of self medication..the suicides.
            This ALL says that so much is not working.

            How about we see this and stop doing what is breaking people?

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