PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Pennsylvania Department of Health is launching a campaign to increase awareness of the lifesaving drug naloxone in cases of a drug overdose.
The campaign is also meant to minimize the barriers and decrease the stigma faced by Pennsylvanians who are at risk of a drug overdose. It will feature stories from people who have been affected by substance use to emphasize why everyone should get naloxone - which often has the brand name Narcan - and keep it with them, to help themselves or someone else.
”Every day in Pennsylvania, 14 people die as a result of an overdose. They’re neighbors, your family. They’re not as far as people think they are,” a public service announcement said.
“For me, wherever I go, naloxone goes with me,” Desmond, a harm reduction worker, said in the PSA. “I never leave home without it…it saves lives. It’s better to have it and not need it because I would want other people to have the same opportunity that I had.”
Opioids slow down the central nervous system and can cause breathing to slow or stop altogether. naloxone is a medication designed to reverse those effects.
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The CDC said that if a person’s breath has stopped or slowed down due to an opioid overdose, naloxone can bring back normal breathing patterns within two or three minutes.
Due to a statewide standing order that you can read below, the medication is available at pharmacies without a prescription.
“The campaign utilizes real stories from real Pennsylvanians and uses the tag line and call to action, ‘get naloxone today,’” said Ashley Bolton, the director of the Office of Drug Surveillance and Misuse Prevention at the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
“With this campaign, it’s our hope to decrease the stigma around naloxone. That campaign will also elevate really important programs that are already underway in the commonwealth, including the standing order.”
There were 5,224 overdose deaths in 2021, compared to 5,162 in 2020.
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The campaign will launch early May and run throughout the summer and possibly longer. Bolton added.
“We do believe we will have additional funding available throughout the fall of 2022 and winter of [2023], and even into the spring and summer of 2023, to continue this campaign.”
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