# 115

The range of responses in the world of opioid overdoses.

Ohio City Councilman proposes limit of two Narcan OD reversal doses, coupled with payment or equivalent community service or third request for assistance will be denied.

This blog has been posting for more than one year at a rate of approximately one post every 4 days.  Today's post illustrates, perhaps, the stingiest response for persons in need because the demand for Narcan has sky-rocketed, while overloading Municipal budgets.  The Middletown, Ohio Fire Department spent $11,000 for Narcan in 2016 and $30,000 in 2017 and the below article reports on a proposed effort to control the expense.

In contrast, in September 2016, the FDA announced a competition (with a prize of $40,000) for any submitter of a mobile device application that will identify the location of the user in a quest to locate the nearest available dose of Narcan; presumably due to a nearby overdose of an opioid substance.  As one reads the announcement [http://www.ajmc.com/newsroom/5-things-about-the-fdas-call-for-a-naloxone-finding-app] one can imagine an overdose in a Manhattan high-rise building coupled with a query on the application followed by locating an available dose within the same building - a life saved.

When the application competition was announced last fall, it was addressed in this blog [ see Post # 26 ] for reasons other than cost.  In the United States, local and state health departments maintain statistics in order that they can provide better service to taxpayers as well as data to politicians.  When Narcan was once issued only by prescription, data was easily obtained and tracked and Government could use the data for budget and pro-active reasons.  Once Narcan was made available without prescription, the positive benefits from the data collection was lost.  Secondly, any responsible Department of Health would want to intervene to save the life of any person who overdosed too many times.  That ability to recognized OD victims in crisis is being lost as tracking of Narcan issuance data has been lost.

So the reader can compare a wide-open, no data-tracked Narcan availability for an unlimited use example to a stingy maximum of two doses for which repayment - in some form - is required.

The outcome may lie somewhere in between the two.

Again, this blog asks:

Our Society is spending resources on persons who have climbed onto the substance abuse opioid conveyer belt which has the potential to lead to death.

Meanwhile, a mass of humanity remains a not-addicted to opioids and these younger people are not yet on the conveyer belt.

What percentage of Society's resources should be devoted to the group who are not on the conveyer belt?

While politicians respond to the folks who have lost loved ones to opioid overdoses by taking off the cap on Narcan spending and ease of acquisition, shouldn't a large chunk of those resources be used to keep a trailing generation from climbing on to the conveyer belt?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/26/ohio-city-rep-proposes-new-system-to-combat-expensive-overdose-drug.html