Examine Narcan closely

Naloxone, known by the trade name Narcan, is a key life-saving asset amid the opioid crisis currently gripping this country.
Narcan has saved the lives of many thousands of overdose victims across the United States since early 2014, when its availability began getting attention.
Back then, a big question was how to have Narcan close at hand for more people, not only for users of illegal drugs but also for people who take opiates legally as prescribed by their doctor.
Narcan reverses a heroin or other opiate overdose instantly by binding to the opioid receptors in the brain, displacing other drugs and reversing the effects.
A Mirror editorial on Feb. 25, acknowledging the moral and financial perspectives and questions surrounding naloxone, observed that “Narcan is a topic that needs to be given much more attention on the municipal front, not only by officials but by the public — the taxpayers — whom they serve."
It has gotten that positive attention, and there's greater access to the rescue drug here as well as other places across the land.
But not all news surrounding naloxone's use is good, unfortunately, as a May 12 Wall Street Journal article reported. The article discussed how health officials across the United States are becoming increasingly frustrated that some people saved by naloxone are succumbing quickly to another, sometimes fatal, overdose.
The new urgency is rightly seen as getting revived addicts connected as soon as possible to recovery services, before a new overdose threatens their life.
As noted by the Journal, Camden County, N.J., offers recovery services to users revived by naloxone before those individuals are discharged from the hospital. If they agree, the county pays for them to receive outpatient treatment until a spot at an inpatient center becomes available.
Prior to visiting Bedford earlier this month to discuss the commonwealth's opioid epidemic, Gov. Tom Wolf reiterated his 2016-17 budget request for $34 million in new funds for 50 Opioid Use Disorder Centers of Excellence to provide a wide range of services to addicts.
The fate of that proposal is uncertain because a state budget for next fiscal year has not yet been adopted.
Congress passed several bills Thursday aimed at combating this national problem that is causing more deaths than people dying in traffic accidents. According to a Journal article on May 13, prescription painkillers, heroin and other opiods were involved in 61 percent of the 47,055 drug-overdose deaths in the country in 2014.
When naloxone came on the scene more than two years ago, Narcan was touted as a virtual miracle. However, addicts whose lives it saves find out that it's hardly a “piece of cake."
As the Journal reported on May 12, naloxone can trigger brutal withdrawal symptoms. Some addicts treated with it become combative and seek opioids again to calm themselves and stave off withdrawal.
The opioid epidemic has been described by a federal lawmaker as surpassing any challenge presented by a natural disaster.
That's an appropriate description of why immediate, effective post-naloxone recovery services have become so urgent and indispensable in the battle against opioid addiction and its possible overdose consequences.
The Altoona Mirror
Altoona, Pa.