Narcan May Become Over The Counter Medication

Zanesville, OH- An advisory committee with the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously recently to recommend that Narcan be available over the counter.  

Narcan is a medication to help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States.

“The opioid, whether it be fentanyl or any of the other narcotics that are out there, heroin, morphine and so forth, the way it kills is through depression of respirations. People stop breathing. It depresses the respiratory center in the brain. Narcan reverses that effect and literally is life saving,” medical director of Public Health of Zanesville-Muskingum County, Jack Butterfield, stated.  

This medicine is a first aid option and not a long-term treatment plan. There are no negative effects if you were to ingest Narcan. Unless you were chronically on a narcotic, you may experience acute withdrawal. Most overdoses are unintentional.

“There are accidental overdoses where people, whether it be an adult or even more alarming a child, accidentally ingest a narcotic. If the Narcan is readily available, then that can reverse the effects of that narcotic on the person that accidentally took it, say a child, which is a fairly common occurrence, children taking prescription medications. This is the antidote for that,” Butterfield said. 

Right now, Narcan is only available through prescription. If approved, it would be available almost immediately because there is already a supply on hand at pharmacies. If you want to find out more information or training on this, you can visit Project DAWN through the Zanesville Muskingum County Health Department at zmchd.org/nursing/project-dawn.