Anti-overdose drug Narcan

the anti-overdose drug narcan, a brand name for naloxone, is expected to become easily available at texas walgreens, including in el paso … thanks to a recent legislative decision and a state-wide prescription written by a professor at baylor college of medicine. abc-7’s darren hunt looked into it and has the latest … darren. estela, this is being hailed as a major step forward in the state’s fight against the opioid epidemic … and although it is not yet available at your neighborhood walgreens, it is expected to be available over the counter very soon. “they had to like slap me bac to life, they had to throw water on me … ” angie solis is recovering heroin user. she recently spoke to abc-7’s denise olivas while in an el paso rehab program. “they had to try to revive me because i was dead and it felt like everything in my body had shut down.” an opioid overdose can cause the breathing and pulse to slow, leading to brain damage or death. the drug narcan, a brand name for naxolone, can stop those effects for 60 to 90 minutes by binding to the brain’s opiod receptors and essentially switching them off. “it’s safe, its effective and relatively cost friendly.” single dose of narcan, available in a nasal spray, pre- loaded shot or a vial, currently costs about 50 to 100 dollars and is covered by medicaid. i called around to walgreens stores in el paso and it’s not available yet. some pharmacists told me they have to take a certification class first, but expect to have it in a month or two. opioid-related deaths are on the rise in el paso. the el paso county medical examiner reports more than 150 overdose deaths in the past four years. the youngest being a 16-year-old in 2012. “we don’t see a lot of it her in el paso, we see it usually in other parts of the country, but we know that it’s on its way to el paso because we can see it trending across the united states.” narcan comes with potential side effects. “it’s going to have some side effects as well when you quickly reverse a medication such as an opiod … nausea, vommitting, pain, dilerium.” thousands of lives are believed to have been saved by narcan, which helps restore breathing and allows time to seek emergency help. research has shown that when anti-opioids are distributed in communities, they can reduce overdose deaths by 50 percent. estela. another live look at the city tonight from the abc-seven mountain cam. you