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Vending machines distributing life-saving Narcan shots represent the latest effort to combat the wave of opioid overdose deaths plaguing the nation.
Cities across the country, including San Diego, Las Vegas, and New York, have installed vending machines and locker kiosks with nasal sprays containing naloxone, an emergency drug that can be used by people who have overdosed on opioids such as fentanyl.
This spray, often called Narcan, revives someone from the brink of death and allows them to breathe instantly.
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Charlie Nolan, a harm reduction expert for the City of Philadelphia Public Health Department, told Fox. news.
City officials recently installed the Naloxon Tower in front of the Blackwell Library in the West Philadelphia neighborhood.
“I think we’re reaching quite a few people who were previously inaccessible, didn’t know where to get them, or weren’t comfortable talking to someone to get them,” Nolan said.
The Tower has a total of 44 Narkan Shots.
“I think it has been very effective in getting naloxone into the hands of more people.”
Each of the 22 lockers contains a kit containing two doses of Narkan Nasal Spray, a face shield for rescue breathing, gloves, and a quick guide on how to inject.
Nolan says he frequently restocks the kiosks.
“There are quite a few people responding to surveys that you can also participate in,” he says. “I think it has been very effective in getting naloxone into the hands of more people.”
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Since its installation in February this year, the tower has been visited nearly 400 times.
Of those, nearly half of the users responded to an anonymous survey that collected their zip code, gender and ethnicity.
Public Health Director Andrew Best said the agency could not determine how many of those doses were used to save someone from overdosing, but he said the pilot program I believe that is effective.
“People forget that individuals are overdosing at home,” Best told Fox News. No, but we do know that individuals are accessing and using naloxone.”
The locker’s pilot program is part of a broader initiative to distribute life-saving Narkan throughout cities hit hardest by the opioid crisis.
In 2020, the city recorded over 1,200 overdose deaths. City estimates data show an increase in 2021.
The Philadelphia Public Health Department also offers harm reduction training with fentanyl test strips, instructing people how to administer Narcan shots in addition to addiction treatment.
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“We’re only looking at trends and what’s going on, so we haven’t finalized numbers for 2021, so I think that’s very important, but we can already extrapolate that. [overdose deaths] Probably higher,” Best said.
“The individual just goes and hits a B7, the kit drops out, and then they go their own way.”
“So we want to make this life-saving drug available to different groups of people and different types of communities.”
Plans are already underway to install a second tower near the intersection of 60th and Market Streets, and the agency hopes to install more towers as they continue to prove effective.
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According to a recent CDC report, there will be more than 100,000 overdose deaths across the United States in 2021 alone, and many cities and other local governments across the country are working to reduce that number by 2022. We’ve been looking for ways to make access to Saving Narkan easier.
Wayne State University in Michigan has 15 machines installed statewide, including its Detroit campus.
The free kiosk looks like a traditional vending machine and is anonymously accessible to anyone in need of overdose recovery medicine.
“Our program does not require payment or an access ID,” said Matt Costello, program manager for the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State University.
“The payment mechanism has been suspended on all the machines we have distributed.
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Costello said the program is modeled after an initiative started by the Los Angeles County Prison System, which has Narcan-stocked vending machines.
“We wanted to make Narkan available to individuals released from prison,” Costello said.
“The data show that the risk of overdosing after incarceration is very high, so we put eight machines in county jails and seven in places like harm reduction agencies and other types of treatment facilities. We put it in a community environment and made it available for distribution.Narkan in a more efficient and easy way.”
Wayne State University has applied for a grant to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. This will allow us to purchase and install 20 more machines statewide this October.
To date, more than 19,000 Narcans have been distributed across 15 machines across the state, Costello said.
“It’s never been as bad as it is right now. Sadly, it will probably get worse before it gets better,” former Drug Enforcement Administration deputy chief of staff Jim Crotty said in an interview with Fox News. rice field.
“This is something we’ve never seen before. Synthetic opioids, especially fentanyl, are polluting the drug supply. They’re in just about everything these days. That’s what’s causing the surge in overdose deaths. there is.”
“Certainly, I don’t want to see any more Americans die.”
He added, “We should carpet bomb our cities with naloxone. That’s the horror of this crisis.”
Crotty believes that while these vending machines may be effective in distributing Narkan to those in need, they are only a band-aid to the larger problem of drug addiction and abuse.
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“This is certainly the quickest and easiest thing we can do to reduce overdose mortality.” It’s just the first step in resolving it, and Vending Machines and Narkan aren’t going to do it for us.”
He also said, “The problem is really the illegal drugs themselves. I think we should focus on that. I certainly don’t want to see any more Americans die.”