{"id":5466,"date":"2015-11-08T09:03:49","date_gmt":"2015-11-08T17:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/ellis-narcan-bill-means-life-or-death\/"},"modified":"2015-11-08T09:03:49","modified_gmt":"2015-11-08T17:03:49","slug":"ellis-narcan-bill-means-life-or-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/ellis-narcan-bill-means-life-or-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellis: Narcan bill means ‘life or death’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note:<\/em> This is part of a series of stories on heroin, with the next installments to be published Monday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Anchorage Sen. Johnny Ellis says his bill is different from the ones usually heard in the Capitol.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the legislation we deal with in the Legislature is not life or death,\u201d he said in a phone interview this week. \u201cThis bill is life or death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 23 deals directly with increasing access to a life-saving heroin antidote called Naxolone, better known by its brand name Narcan. It can instantly reverse an opiod overdose if administered during the overdose.<\/p>\n

SB23 has garnered huge amounts of support from local politicians, health officials and community activists \u2014 all of whom are looking toward Narcan to help stem the recent spike of heroin-related fatalities in the capital city. Six people have died of heroin overdoses in Juneau since February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to arm our community with this,\u201d said Michele Stuart Morgan, a 53-year-old Juneau resident who started a grass-roots group, \u201cJuneau \u2013 Stop Heroin, Start Talking,\u201d to raise awareness about heroin use in Juneau.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s urging her group\u2019s members to support SB23 and is collecting signatures for support. \u201cWe have to be proactive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Juneau Police Department is contemplating having its patrol officers carry Narcan, following in the footsteps of police departments on the East Coast that are also combating skyrocketing heroin-related deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re using Narcan in their police departments,\u201d JPD Chief Bryce Johnson said of a presentation he recently attended about the Quincy, Massachusetts, police department. \u201c\u2026 We\u2019re missing a couple of pieces on the model they\u2019re using back there, but we\u2019re looking at them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no quick-fix for reducing or eliminating drug addiction, but putting Narcan into more hands in the community appears to be one of the most immediate and effective steps to take to physically prevent heroin deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010 estimated Naxolone was responsible for preventing 10,000 heroin overdose deaths.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a staple for EMTs and hospitals for decades. In Juneau, Capital City Fire\/Rescue EMTs have saved seven people from heroin overdoses so far this year by administering Narcan, CCFR Chief Richard Etheridge said. He said CCFR has delivered Narcan 22 times this year, a slight increase over last year\u2019s 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people normally, when it\u2019s given (properly), they just slowly start waking up a little bit and start breathing a little bit better on their own,\u201d Etheridge said of how people react to Narcan.<\/p>\n

Narcan is non-addictive and does not have any serious side effects, but it should be administered slowly when injected (there\u2019s also a nasal spray form of Narcan). Etheridge said if a high dose is given all at once, the patient can become combative.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt instantly reverses the high that they had, so a lot of times patients will come up swinging,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re very upset and agitated.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pushing Narcan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Large swaths of the country are grappling with a crippling and deadly heroin epidemic \u2014 the rate of heroin-related deaths has nearly quadrupled in the U.S. \u2014 as the result of it becoming cheaper and easy to get than the over-prescribed pain killer OxyContin. More than 8,200 people died of heroin in 2013, the CDC says, leading to more people advocating for Narcan to become more widely available.<\/p>\n

In West Virginia, school nurses are being trained on how to administer Narcan to students. Drug users in Baltimore are being trained in court how to deliver it, should one of their friends overdose. Police officers in Massachusetts are carrying Narcan with them on patrol.<\/p>\n

There have been 853 confirmed rescues using Narcan out of 924 attempts in Massachusetts so far in 2015, according to the 23 police and fire departments there reporting to the state\u2019s Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Sen. Ellis, D-Anchorage, said he wants it to be more available to Alaskan families. His bill protects Alaskan doctors from civil liability for prescribing Naloxone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make it over the counter, so a doctor could prescribe this and a Juneau family who might have a family member who\u2019s a heroin addict could have this in their family home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ellis introduced the bill last session, where it passed the Senate floor with a 19-1 vote. It\u2019s currently in the House Health and Social Services Committee and would need to clear a House vote next legislative session. Then it would only take the signature of Gov. Bill Walker to become law.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 29 other states have passed similar legislation, and I want Alaska to join,\u201d Ellis said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Legislative support<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alaska\u2019s Department of Health and Social Services said in a July report that 72 people died from heroin between 2008 and 2012, and the number of heroin-associated deaths more than tripled during 2008-2013. One of the report\u2019s recommendations to curb the death rate was to broaden access to Naloxone for acute heroin overdose reversal.<\/p>\n

Dr. Carl Heine, an Emergency Room doctor at Bartlett Regional Hospital, told the Empire that Narcan works by blocking the receptors receiving the opiods in the brain. Every drug has side effects, including Narcan, he said, with nausea and diarrhea among them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an ER doctor, I\u2019m all about saving lives,\u201d Heine said with a smile when asked if he supported the bill.<\/p>\n

He expressed concerns, though, that heroin users would become overconfident in thinking that they can be saved.<\/p>\n

Etheridge, too, said he would support the bill but he thinks there should be an education component to it, so people know how to administer it. One risk of the medication is that if the person receiving Narcan does not receive emergency care afterward and the Narcan wears off, the person will go right back into the heroin overdose and could die.<\/p>\n

Among the bill\u2019s supporters are the Alaska State Medical Association, which stated in a letter that Alaska ranks 29th among states for the highest drug overdose mortality rate, and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. The Haven House, which provides housing and support for formerly incarcerated addicts in Juneau, also voiced support.<\/p>\n

SB23 has nine co-sponsors, including Sen. Dennis Egan, D-Juneau, who said he decided to cosponsor the bill after hearing about the legislation and talking with Ellis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we save even one user from an overdose, it\u2019s well worth it,\u201d Egan said in an email, adding that heroin is \u201cgetting way out of hand and in a horrible way. We need to at least try to add more teeth to provide another way to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ellis described the bill as a \u201csmall piece of the puzzle\u201d and not the \u201cend-all, be-all,\u201d but that it will help prevent heroin related deaths. He said he was optimistic it would pass when the Legislature reconvenes in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get this drug more widely available, and it will save lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you\u2019d like to be a part of the Empire\u2019s coverage highlighting heroin addiction in Juneau, contact reporter Emily Russo Miller at 523-2263 or emily.miller@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This is part of a series of stories on heroin, with the next installments to be published Monday. Anchorage Sen. Johnny Ellis says his bill is different from the ones usually heard in the Capitol. \u201cA lot of the legislation we deal with in the Legislature is not life or death,\u201d he said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":430,"featured_media":5467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/430"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5466"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}