Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards recently requested that the Honesdale Borough Council allow Honesdale police officers to be trained in the use of Narcan™, which is the brand name of naloxone, a prescription drug that can almost immediately reverse the effects of an overdose brought on by heroin or other opioid drugs such as oxycodone or morphine.

The council denied the request citing fear of possible lawsuits if police officers were to use Narcan. One alternative to using Narcan is to have a police officer respond to the scene of an overdose where the victim is nonresponsive and watch the victim die.

As the heroin and opioid epidemic continues to rage throughout the country, municipalities across the nation are getting Narcan into the hands of first responders, and lives are being saved. According to Carlos Holden, the director of emergency medicine at Catskill Regional Medical Center in Sullivan County, NY, that is the case across the river. He said at a meeting at the government center on March 5 that Narcan is being used to save lives in the county.

That is backed up by information from New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who announced on March 11 that the lives of more than 100 people across the state have been saved since police began carrying Narcan kits in April 2014. The program was funded using money that was taken from drug dealers in cases in state and federal court.

Schneiderman said, “By any measure, the COP [Community Overdose Prevention] program has been a resounding public policy success. We have transformed money seized from drug dealers into resources that are saving the lives of their victims.”

There is no question that the need for Narcan is very real. According to information issued by the office of U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, “Every day, 120 people die as a result of drug overdoses fueled by prescription painkillers. Between 2000 and 2013, the rate of death from heroin overdoses nearly quadrupled. Nationwide, drug overdoses now claim more lives than motor vehicle accidents.”

While the fear of litigation around the use of Narcan is no doubt genuine, it’s a bit hard to see where it comes from, given the characteristics of the drug. According to the website stopoverdoseil.org/narcan.html, compiled by Roosevelt University in Chicago, “When a person is overdosing on an opioid, breathing can slow down or stop and it can very hard to wake them from this state. Narcan™ (naloxone) is a prescription medicine that blocks the effects of opioids and reverses an overdose. It cannot be used to get a person high. If given to a person who has not taken opioids, it will not have any effect on him or her, since there is no opioid overdose to reverse.”

More from the website: “Is the use of naloxone by non-medical people controversial? No. Recently the American Medical Association endorsed the training of lay people in the use of Narcan (naloxone) to prevent overdoses. Also, the director of Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowski (the U.S. Drug Czar), remarked that naloxone distribution is a key component of overdose prevention.

“Can Narcan™ (naloxone) harm a person? Narcan™ (naloxone) only affects people who are using opioids. If a person is not having an overdose but has been using opioids, Narcan™ (naloxone) will put them into immediate withdrawal. This can be very uncomfortable for the person, but is not life threatening.”

District Attorney Edwards has issued a press release on the subject that said, “Wayne County DA Chief Detective Hower prepared a policy on the training required, use of the antidote, storage of the antidote and disbursement to local police departments.” Police departments of Waymart and Lehigh Townships and the Borough of Hawley have all signed agreements with the DA’s office and will be carrying Narcan. The press release also said the Pennsylvania State Police is currently working on a program of its own that will make use of the drug.

The press release further said, “The DA’s office was not asked to come to the meeting to inform the council on this program, but I am disappointed in the vote to not approve use of this life-saving tool. I do intend to revisit this issue with Honesdale Borough Council in the immediate future. Immunity exists from prosecution to those first responders who provide Naloxone to an individual overdosing under Act 139.”

We also encourage the members of the borough council to reconsider their stance on the use of Narcan. With all of the heroin and opioid arrests occurring in Wayne County, there is surely a need for it.