Narcan Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate Passes Bill To Teach Adolescents Dangers Of Fentanyl

The bill, known as Laken’s Law, is named after Morgan Laken, who died from a fentanyl overdose in 2021. It requires students to be taught about fentanyl, heroin, and opioid awareness, prevention and abuse, addiction, community resources, substance abuse among young people, and how to administer opioid reversal agents like Narcan. The instruction will begin in the 2024-2025 school year.

The Senate passed a bill Saturday that would mandate public schools to teach about fentanyl in grades 6-12.

Sen. Mike Caputo, D-Marion, said that likely if Laken had known the dangers of fentanyl she might still be alive.

“(She) would have never chosen to leave that beautiful baby of hers, and that beautiful family of hers,” Caputo said. “So maybe… maybe we can help the future of West Virginia. You know, I’ve always said we teach our kids at a very early age not to play with matches. And it works. We’ve got to spend more time teaching them about fentanyl.”

Laken’s mother, father, and four-year-old daughter watched as the bill was passed in the Senate.
The bill passed unanimously in both the Senate and the House of Delegates , and now heads back to the House to consider Senate changes.

Organizers Celebrate Success Of Save A Life Day

The number of Naloxone doses distributed on Save A Life Day more than doubled this year.

All 13 Appalachian states hosted more than 300 events on Save A Life Day and distributed more than 45,000 doses of naloxone.

Naloxone is a medication that works to reverse opioid overdoses. One common brand is Narcan, an easy-to-use nasal spray.

In 2020, the first Save A Life Day was organized by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) Office of Drug Control Policy (ODCP) in partnership with SOAR WV, a Charleston-based community group with the stated goal of promoting the health, dignity, and voices of individuals who are impacted by drug use.

This year, the Bureau for Behavioral Health provided $600,000 worth of naloxone in West Virginia and distributed 29,438 doses to community organizations and individuals across the state.

“The expansion of Appalachian Save a Life Day across multiple states underscores our relentless pursuit of saving lives and providing hope to those affected by the opioid crisis,” said Rachel Thaxton, Interim Director for DHHR’s ODCP. “Together with our partners, we have not only made naloxone more accessible but have also opened the door to a brighter future for individuals and families in need.”

Three years since the effort began in just two counties, more than 180 counties across 13 states participated and distributed more than 45,000 naloxone doses throughout Appalachia.

According to Iris Sidikman, the Appalachian Save a Life Day Coordinator with SOAR, about 20,000 doses were distributed last year.

“One of the most moving things about Save A Life Day, to me is watching people take this idea, this idea that we had and this work that we’ve done, and bring it to their community, all the way up and down the country,” Sidikman said. “That, I think, has been the most meaningful part to me.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Save A Life Day To Distribute Narcan

An event that started in West Virginia’s Kanawha Valley has now spread to all 13 federally recognized Appalachian states.

All 13 Appalachian states will be hosting more than 300 events on September 14 to distribute Naloxone.

Save a Life Day organizers started in 2020 with a two-county pilot project in West Virginia, which then expanded to 17 counties in 2021, and last year all 55 West Virginia counties participated.

Naloxone is a medication that works to reverse opioid overdoses. One common brand is Narcan, an easy-to-use nasal spray.

Now, just three years since the effort began, West Virginia-based SOAR is working with more than 180 counties across 13 states.

SOAR is a Charleston-based community group with the stated goal of promoting the health, dignity, and voices of individuals who are impacted by drug use.

Iris Sidikman, who goes by they/them pronouns, is the Appalachian Save a Life Day Coordinator with SOAR.

“You never know when you might need that,” Sidikman said. “You might see someone overdose in a grocery store parking lot at a park by your house like best case scenario, you have it and you know how to use it and you never have to.”

A map of events can be found at www.savealifeappalachia.org.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

FDA Approves Nasal Naloxone For Over The Counter Use

Until recently, Narcan was only available with a prescription, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a specific naloxone product for use without a prescription: a four-milligram naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray.

Naloxone rapidly reverses the effects of an opioid overdose and is considered the standard treatment.

Lindsay Acree is the Pharmacist-In-Charge at the University of Charleston’s Patient Care Clinic, PharmUC, and an assistant professor in the pharmacy department.

“The motivation is that we’re seeing more and more overdoses,” Acree said. “You know, just because you don’t use a substance doesn’t mean that you don’t have a friend or a family member that doesn’t, so I think that it gives people the opportunity to have it with them, for individuals that they may encounter that have overdosed.”

Narcan nasal spray was first approved by the FDA in 2015 as a prescription drug. As part of the process to change the status of a drug from prescription to nonprescription, the manufacturer provided data demonstrating that the drug is safe and effective for use without the supervision of a healthcare professional.

Still, some worry about the lack of training in using naloxone, but according to Acree, a helpful label will show how to use it.

“Anytime something goes over the counter, it has to be labeled in a way that anyone can understand it, basically,” Acree said. “I mean, it has to be regardless of their level of education, they have to be able to understand how to use it safely and effectively.”

Some advocates, like Amy Saunders, the managing director of Marshall University’s Center of Excellence for Recovery, worry about the unannounced cost of over-the-counter Naloxone nasal spray.

“I think it’s going to maybe make it more accessible to a lot of lot more different types of folks, and in a lot of different types of places and venues,” Saunders said. “But I think the price is going to be really important for us to kind of understand that piece.”

After the FDA’s announcement, Sen. Joe Manchin D-WV released a statement applauding the drug’s approval.

“In the last year, more than 106,000 Americans and 1,400 West Virginians died from drug related overdoses,” Manchin said. “Given the enormous scale of need, it has never been more important to adopt opioid overdose prevention and reversal strategies on a wide scale. Naloxone is an immeasurably valuable resource for our fight against the drug epidemic, and it is proven to be safe and effective for public use. I’m thrilled to see the FDA take this meaningful action to make naloxone available over the counter, which helps reduce stigma and encourages the widespread use of this critical medication during emergencies.

Justice Briefing Touches On COVID, Narcan

COVID-19 cases are trending down nationally, but state health officials are still advocating for vaccination, and the governor discusses over the counter Narcan.

COVID-19 cases are trending down nationally, but state health officials are still advocating for vaccination.

In a prerecorded message presented during Gov. Jim Justice’s press briefing Wednesday, state Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh said that despite a downward trend in COVID-19 deaths nationally, West Virginians over the age of 65 should still seek out an updated Omicron vaccine booster.

“Ninety percent of deaths that we’re still seeing are in Americans over 90 years old, and about 70 percent in Americans over 75 years old. That really also has mirrored the data that we see in West Virginia,” Marsh said. “So it’s important that anybody who has not gotten their bivalent booster vaccine, who is over 65 years old or who is immunocompromised and is still eligible, please go ahead and update that booster to the new omicron booster.”

He said the average daily death rate nationwide is down to about 250 people, compared to about 400 people a day in previous weeks.

“That’s still more people that die during a bad flu season per day,” Marsh said. “So it’s not to be ignored, but it does demonstrate the benefit of the immunity that we know that people in our country and our state are getting, and they’re getting that both from the vaccines and recovery from infection.”

Marsh also stressed the symptoms of long COVID, including brain fog, that have kept millions of Americans out of the workforce.

“When we think about long COVID, we now know that about four million people are not working, which represents about $190 billion a year in loss of revenue from these people,” he said.

Guidance has not changed, and Marsh reiterated the importance of preventing infection, as well as testing to ensure early interventions that can help avoid serious illness and long COVID.

Naloxone Over The Counter

Wednesday morning, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved the overdose-reversing nasal spray Narcan for over-the-counter, nonprescription, use.

It is the first naloxone product approved for use without a prescription.

Later in the briefing, Justice was asked if he would support any action to increase the availability of the treatment in West Virginia, such as a law requiring it to be in schools and public buildings.

“I don’t know a lot of the details right yet and everything but without any question I would support,” Justice said. “It is a question for the legislature but to make this more available, more present in schools or wherever it may be, churches or whatever, this just saves lives. That’s all there is to it. Anything that we can possibly do to make things better and save lives for the people we need to be out doing it.”

Naloxone, Overdose Prevention Clinics Scheduled At Shepherd University

Naloxone clinics are coming to the Eastern Panhandle to help educate locals on what to do in case of an opioid overdose.

A clinic is scheduled for Wednesday at Shepherd University’s student center. It’s set to teach those attending about what to do during an emergency, including identifying an overdose and how to administer naloxone.

“The biggest fact that we carry out through these trainings – our trainers will say this as well – Narcan and naloxone is safe for anyone, this isn’t something that will impact you if you’re not having an opioid overdose,” organizer and dean of students Jacob Mellow said. “But it can be life saving when in the opioid overdose situation. So that is the number one fact that we want to get out there is that it is safe for everyone, and it is safe to be carried and administered.”

Organizer and criminal justice professor Joshua Stout says these sort of clinics are important for the region. Berkeley County is one of the most vulnerable counties for overdose deaths in a state that has already seen the most deaths per capita from the opioid epidemic by a considerable amount, according to DHHR data.

“When we see these high numbers in our community, affecting our community, it’s near impossible today to find somebody who has not been impacted by the opioid epidemic in some way,” Stout said.

Also touched on during the training are ways to contact emergency services and familiarization with the state’s Good Samaritan law, which dictates that there will be no penalization for contacting said services during an overdose situation.

“That just makes it easier for a person to know that they’re going to provide a life saving service, and just to kind of prevent the stigma around calling or not calling for services,” Mellow said.

The clinic is scheduled for 11 a.m. in the student center’s Rumsey Gallery. Another clinic is coming to the school’s Martinsburg Center on Feb. 14. Both clinics are free and open to the public.