To prevent overdose deaths, Los Angeles County health officials made a push to distribute 50,000 boxes of Narcan — a nasal spray that can block the effects of an opioid overdose — by this summer.
His friend was barely breathing when Manny Placeres saw him being dragged out of a tent near a freeway onramp. At first he thought someone nearby was shouting “Freeze.”Placeres jumped off his bicycle and tried everything he could think of to revive the man. Nothing worked. As others panicked and shouted, Placeres pulled the man onto his lap and held him as his lips went blue.
They have set up free vending machines for people exiting L.A. County jails; handed Narcan out to community groups; given boxes to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority and other county departments; and sent Department of Health Services medical teams out with Narcan on their rounds at encampments.
“Put this all the way up their nose and spray,” she instructed. “Three minutes later, do it again. By that time, you’ve already called 911. Keep using it until they come back.” Terry Mason Kendrick greeted the county team from a chair stationed on the sidewalk. When an EMT asked him what he had heard about the opioid epidemic, Kendrick replied dryly, “I like to drink vodka.”Kendrick said he had administered Narcan twice before. The team brought him a few more boxes. “That’ll save somebody’s life,” Kendrick said with satisfaction, setting the boxes next to him on a table.
“We started to normalize it. Just like first aid kits, food, clothing — we’re just treating it like part of a care supply to be distributed,” said Shoshanna Scholar, director of harm reduction and community based diversion in the Office of Diversion and Reentry at the L.A. County Department of Health Services.
For community groups, the new program shifted their thinking from “‘We’re always kind of trickling it out because we’re always worried about running out’ ... to being able to concentrate on handing the stuff out in volume,” said UC San Diego associate professor Peter Davidson, who has been assessing the county initiative.
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