Naloxone is a safe antidote to a suspected overdose and, when given in time, can save a life. Expanding the awareness and availability of this medication is a key part of the public health response to the opioid epidemic. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that is used to temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, namely slowed or stopped breathing. Even when taking their pain medications as prescribed, these patients are at increased risk of accidental overdose as well as drug-alcohol or drug-drug interactions with sedating medications, such as benzodiazepines (anxiety or sleep medications). Another contributing factor to the rise in opioid overdose deaths is an increasing number of individuals receiving higher doses of prescription opioids for long-term management of chronic pain. The resulting unpredictability in illegal drug products is dramatically increasing the risk of a fatal overdose. These highly potent opioids are being mixed with heroin, sold alone as super-potent heroin, pressed into counterfeit tablets to look like commonly misused prescription opioids or sedatives (e.g., Xanax), and being mixed (often unknowingly) with other illicit drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine. 1 This steep increase is attributed to the rapid proliferation of illicitly made fentanyl and other highly potent synthetic opioids.
Over the past 15 years, individuals, families, and communities across our Nation have been tragically affected by the opioid epidemic, with the number of overdose deaths from prescription and illicit opioids doubling from 21,089 in 2010 to 42,249 in 2016. For patients currently taking high doses of opioids as prescribed for pain, individuals misusing prescription opioids, individuals using illicit opioids such as heroin or fentanyl, health care practitioners, family and friends of people who have an opioid use disorder, and community members who come into contact with people at risk for opioid overdose, knowing how to use naloxone and keeping it within reach can save a life.īE PREPARED.
I, Surgeon General of the United States Public Health Service, VADM Jerome Adams, am emphasizing the importance of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
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