This from the Kokomo Tribune: KOKOMO, IN- Having worked in the Miami County Health Department dealing with naloxone as a community outreach coordinator, Kokomo resident Antonia Sawyer was able to train numerous first responders in the proper application of Narcan, which comes in intranasal and intramuscular forms.
Naloxone – also known as Narcan – is an opiote antidote that travels to the brain and counteracts with the opiotes that have rested on the brain’s receptors, Sawyer said. That effect lasts roughly 30 to 90 minutes, depending on a person’s metabolism, which allows enough time for that person who has overdosed to get immediate medical attention.
Sawyer quoted, “But when I switched roles over to my new position in Indianapolis, the program discontinued. So I went to the Indiana Recovery Alliance and told them that the program discontinued and that the health department no longer needed the program. I was of course extremely worried about the people who use drugs in my community, that people could potentially die because they didn’t have access to naloxone.”
So the alliance personally gifted 1,500 doses of the antidote to Sawyer, something that she referred to as fabulous.
While Sawyer said she ships to her particular harm reduction friends throughout the state, she also sends naloxone through the mail to anyone who visits her Facebook page and requests a kit after watching a short video and filling out a naloxone training questionaire.
And since its inception earlier this year, ShipHappens has already distributed roughly 3,000 naloxone kits across Indiana, along with registering 44 saves.
Sawyer noted that she has over 600 kits currently waiting to ship out, with a mixture of both intranasal and intramuscular.
Along with the actual naloxone, each kit also comes with a set of instructions and a copy of Aaron’s Law – a piece of legislation passed in 2015 that allows any Indiana resident to carry and administer naloxone without prosecution.