So I'm all for Narcan distribution (and I have probably about 60 doses in my house right now to be distributed soon), but want to caution people about this for a couple reasons:
If you do get this with your healthcare it's going to show up on your prescription record, and can potentially fuck up your chances to get a controlled substance prescription if you need one, especially if you pick it up regularly. People have been denied life insurance for this too.
Actually free Narcan is generally pretty viable to come by (for example this program will send it to anyone via post for free. It's some of the other safer use supplies, many still classified as paraphernalia, that can be harder to come across.
I'm all for people getting access to Narcan / naloxone by whatever means makes sense for them. Being fully informed is good too. This can end up a tag on your insurance that will plausibly subject you to at least some level of discrimination usually reserved for opioid users, and injection drug users. If someone is fine with that, by all means go the pharmacy route.
But I suppose if nothing else, getting Narcan over the counter you'll know if your local pharmacy is actually competent at doing this. And maybe it saves someone else the trouble, if they have no idea what they're doing. Living in Philly, me trying this a couple years ago and being turned down at two pharmacies (before being heavily sideyed at a third) was a bit of a wakeup call as to the barriers often involved in this type of access. Even in the most highest overdose death rate large city in the country.
So I'm all for Narcan distribution (and I have probably about 60 doses in my house right now to be distributed soon), but want to caution people about this for a couple reasons:
Actually free Narcan is generally pretty viable to come by (for example this program will send it to anyone via post for free. It's some of the other safer use supplies, many still classified as paraphernalia, that can be harder to come across.
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I'm all for people getting access to Narcan / naloxone by whatever means makes sense for them. Being fully informed is good too. This can end up a tag on your insurance that will plausibly subject you to at least some level of discrimination usually reserved for opioid users, and injection drug users. If someone is fine with that, by all means go the pharmacy route.
But I suppose if nothing else, getting Narcan over the counter you'll know if your local pharmacy is actually competent at doing this. And maybe it saves someone else the trouble, if they have no idea what they're doing. Living in Philly, me trying this a couple years ago and being turned down at two pharmacies (before being heavily sideyed at a third) was a bit of a wakeup call as to the barriers often involved in this type of access. Even in the most highest overdose death rate large city in the country.
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