Comments on: Controversial overdose rescue kit saves lives

By: ElfNinosMom

ElfNinosMom — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:41:27 +0000

I’m not a religious woman, but to Josh I have to say ….

Amen, brother.

By: Josh 1991

Josh 1991 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:07:00 +0000

I think it is really cool that in a world where drug addiction is so socially unacceptable, there are still groups of people willing to help instead of shun drug users. Once we start treating drug users like people, insead of criminals, we (as a nation) can come together and recognize the atrocity that is the drug war, and start opening to more social progression.

-Josh

By: Miche

Miche — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:25:43 +0000

When my husband was in med school at NYU, he volunteered at a needle exchange. There were protesters then screaming about the program making drug addiction ok.

People are often very short sighted when it comes to illicit drug abuse. It’s really a sad thing considering that everything in this world carries the potential for abuse. In fact, the doc and I were arguing about illicit drugs the other day and he said that it’d be ok to legalize pot but nothing harder (I think you know my position on that). I asked the difference between any drug with regard to abuse outside of its packaging. Of course, then we went round for round on Xanax popping housewives for a little while.

What some people fail to realize is that everything you ingest or even rub onto your body- legal or not- creates a change and those changes may vary person to person. Punishing certain people because of their choices in drug packaging is not the appropriate solution to addiction.

By: elfninosmom

elfninosmom — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:59:10 +0000

I agree 100%, Miche. I absolutely think addicts should have access to Narcan. It is safe, since it’s impossible to overdose on it, and it saves lives.

I am absolutely for needle exchange programs, overdose rescue kits, and other things which will help keep addicts alive and stop both overdose deaths and the spread of hepatitis, AIDS, and other diseases contracted through intravenous drug abuse.

After all, many addicts will eventually recover from their addiction and become productive members of society, but they will never even have the chance to do that if they die from an easily preventable effect of drug abuse.

The government is therefore ignorant to suggest these programs should not be widely available. Perhaps they would view it differently if one of their loved ones died from an overdose which could have been prevented by an overdose rescue kit, or contracted AIDS from a dirty needle.

By: Miche

Miche — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:08:50 +0000

I think the Narcan program is fabulous on all levels. If you get away from the moral issues of drug abuse and simply look at the financial benefits of programs such as this you will find that Narcan, at < $2 a dose, is much cheaper than the ~ $16,000 average cost of an overdose hospitalization. (Source)

That doesn’t even begin to compare to the humane benefits of early overdose corrective measures.