Wider distribution of Naloxone

Australian experts have called for the removal of barriers that prevent the drug naloxone from being easily available for peer administration after heroin overdose.

In a letter to the MJA, Professor Simon Lenton, Deputy Director of the National Drug Research Institute, along with colleagues from Melbourne’s Burnet Institute and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, said that naloxone administration by peers has been shown to be a “remarkably safe” intervention to prevent deaths from heroin overdose. “We call on all Australian states and territories to immediately enact Good Samaritan legislation to legally protect laypeople using naloxone in emergency situations,” they said. They also called for the drug to be reclassified from a Schedule 4 (S4) to S3 or S2 to make it available over the counter. “Heroin overdose deaths are preventable. We need to take action now to enable peer-led intervention to reduce this serious outcome.” Nine years ago there had been a push to trial the distribution of naloxone to the peers of people at risk of a heroin overdose, but, as the heroin market was disrupted and use declined, the trials did not proceed, the authors said. However, they noted that overseas trials have shown that fears about naloxone, such as that it would be unsafe to administer or would encourage more risky drug use, had been proved to be unfounded. By December 2008 there were 52 programs in the United States that distributed naloxone to the peers of heroin users which had caused over 1000 documented overdose reversals, they said. MJA 2009; 191 (8): 469.

More at the site below:

http://www.psychiatryupdate.com.au/article/otc-naloxone-would-save-lives/503013.aspx