OD?

January 27th, 2024| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

The US Food & Drug Administration last year approved an over-the-counter nasal spray naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, allowing the opioid overdose reversal medication to be sold directly to consumers. According to advocates, everyone should be carrying one of these.

Said Nichole Dawsey, the executive director of PreventEd:

Most of the people that we’re giving Narcan to are either—A: lacking insurance and they’re not going to go into CVS or Walgreens and pay the $30 copay. Or B: There’s such shame and stigma that surrounds this, the last thing they’re going to do is … go into a pharmacy and say, ‘Oh, hey, I think I need Narcan.’ So everyone should be carrying it.”

John Gaal, he director of the Missouri Works Initiative’s Worker Wellness Program, was on a Southwest Airlines flight some time ago, when a fellow-passenger began showing telltale signs of an opioid overdose.

Gaal recounted:

He had beads of sweat on his forehead. He had vomit on the side of his face. He wasn’t responding to his name. And when I opened his eyes, truly, his pupils were the size of a pinhead.”

Gaal, the in-flight crew and several medical professionals on board helped revive the man after administering the naloxone that Gaal and his wife was carrying with them.

When we shot him with the Narcan, we put the oxygen mask on him, rolled him onto his side in the rescue position, [and] within three minutes, he had come back to life. That cemented in my mind why we call this ‘the Lazarus drug.’ I saw someone come back to life.”

The guy was able to return to his seat, and the flight went on as planned.

Gaal again:

This stuff’s happening on the ground and obviously 35,000 feet in the air. You know, you got to prepare for this stuff.”

So Southwest Airlines will now carry the opioid overdose-reversal drug naloxone on flights.

Declared company officials said in a statement:

With Customer Safety and comfort at front of mind, Southwest is enhancing its onboard emergency medical kits above and beyond current FAA requirements.”

Federal officials require planes to stock epinephrine, nitroglycerine tablets and other drugs to handle allergic reactions, heart problems and other issues. Flights also are required to have automatic external defibrillators on board. Southwest officials say they’re also adding more effective stethoscopes that can be heard over in-flight noise.

What a world!

Best way to prevent all this is, of course, to avoid such toxic drugs in the first place. Instead get a “high” this way:

With all my heart I have sought You;
let me not stray from Your commandments.
Psalm 119:10

In Your statutes I will be delighted;
I will not forget Your word.
Psalm 119:16

Uncover my eyes, and I will regard
wonderful things from Your law.
Psalm 119:18

Good for me is the law of Your mouth,
more [so] than thousands of gold and silver [pieces].
Psalm 119:72

How I have loved Your law;
all the day it is my musing.
Psalm 119:97

How smooth to my palate is Your utterance,
more than honey [is] to my mouth.
Psalm 119:103

A lamp to my feet is Your word,
and a light to my pathway.
Psalm 119:105

Wonderful are Your decrees,
therefore my soul has observed them.
Psalm 119:129

My mouth I opened wide and I panted,
for I longed for Your commandments.
Psalm 119:131

Great peace [is] to those loving Your law,
and there is nothing that can make them stumble.
Psalm 119:165

Far more exhilarating than any drug!

SOURCE: NPR