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Narcan — the opioid overdose medication — will finally be available over the counter (www.vox.com)

submitted 1 year ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In just a few days, drugstores like Walgreens will have it in stock, for everyone. Here’s how to use it, and who it will help.

all 30 comments

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[-] theredroom@midwest.social 26 points 1 year ago

This is a good step forward for accessibility, but unfortunately, the $50 price tag will still put it out of the hands of many who need it. It should be handed out, for free, to anybody who wants it. There's zero downsides. It cannot be misused, diverted, or abused. It has no other uses. It has no effect on someone not ODing. It cannot benefit anyone in any possible way... unless they are actually dying right now. If we were serious about saving lives, we would be gladly giving it out. Hell, put it in free vending machines on the street. It would be the ultimate pro-life move. But, of course, in a capitalist hellscape, profit motive is of utmost importance. How about drug cos. making billions off opiods foot the bill? Thankfully, there are many great harm reduction organizations that do hand it out free, but the easier to get, the less people die. I recommend anyone pick up some, if you can find it for free, even if you don't think you'd need it. Home/work/car, you never know what might happen in your vicinity. It's like the modern Heimlich Maneuver. Ok... that's my PSA for the day.

[-] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Wow, I didn't know it wasn't. That is crazy!

[-] SymphonicResonance@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

It was previously available behind the counter but a prescription was not needed .

[-] papalonian@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

To be clear, a prescription is still technically needed, but most states have laws in place that allows the pharmacist to write that prescription. Vaccines are done similarly.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Now it's time for conservatives to crow about how this is a bad thing and not have a good reason why.

[-] theredroom@midwest.social 5 points 1 year ago

And betray their pro-life stance, once again. As George Carlin said:

"They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked."

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Except even that isn't true. Do you see them pushing for free pre-natal care? If there's something wrong with your fetus that can be fixed through medical care and you can't afford it, fuck you and your baby, lady.

[-] Ulv@feddit.nu 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Itll stop drug users from killing themselves thats a good reason not too allow this

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

You're a real humanitarian.

[-] jay9@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

For my Aussie friends - there is a free Take Home Nalaxone program, you can go to a huge list of chemists and get it for free, no prescriptions, no intrusive questions, super easily.

I got mine a couple of weeks ago 😄

https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/take-home-naloxone-program/where-to-access-naloxone

[-] theredroom@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

Awesome! Great info. I never doubted you guys would have a better program then we do in the states. Cheers.

[-] gornar@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Same here, at least on the west coast of Canada. Free, take one or two and go save some lives!

[-] IntentionallyAnon@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

The fact this exists proves we lost the “war on drugs”

[-] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

[removed by mod]

[-] FilthyHands@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago

“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon

[-] Intralexical@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Source: Dan Baum, Harper's magazine April 2016 issue, quoting Ehrlichman in 1994 in-person interview.

Ehrlichman had spent a short stint in federal prison, and since found work doing minority recruitment for an engineering firm in Atlanta. Reported on by CNN, with reactions from his family.

[-] theredroom@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago

Right on. And the same tactic had been going on even earlier. Starting back in the late 1800s with the opium laws in San Francisco. Too many Asians moving in, hence the beginning of the gross "yellow peril" propaganda. The laws were specifically created to target Asians. Then in the 1930s, Reefer Madness-type propaganda was heavily targeted against Mexicans. Blacks and heroin, then crack. Jazz musicians, beatniks, hippies, on and on... always another group to "Other" because of their race or their eschewing of social mores, so pave a legal framework to come down on them from. Much of drug law history was born out of a desire to eliminate an undesireable group.

[-] Fisk400@feddit.nu 4 points 1 year ago

It depends on if making less drug users die counts as a win for us or the drugs. I count it as a win for us.

[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

why in the fuck would it not be to begin with

[-] arefx@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Conservatives?

[-] nutsack@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i don't know. i think there are many inconsequential things you can't buy over the counter in the united states. i have to wonder if it's a health insurance complex thing.

[-] arefx@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean health insurance plays a part in it. Conservatives don't want to pay tax money on narcan for people they consider valueless when they are already paying for their own health care. How do I know they think they are valueless? They don't want them to have access to a life savings thing. Also plenty will just straight up tell you that if you ask.

this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023

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