Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, CDC data shows

Re:Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, C... by spangry on Sunday December 11, 2016 @04:09AM (#13150268)

Naloxone is definitely the standard when it comes to treating withdrawals. From a harm reduction perspective it would make a lot of sense to include doses in clean injection kits (if your state has such a programme). Although I suspect the 'zero-tolerance' crowd would oppose anything like that.

However, I'm not sure it would be effective in treating long-term withdrawal. It stops withdrawals by essentially knocking heroin off μ-opioid receptors (i.e. it is an inverse μ-opioid agonist with a very high receptor affinity). But it's effects only last a bit over an hour. Additionally, because of its inverse action, I suspect you'd experience withdrawal symptoms that are more severe than those you would experience going cold turkey.

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Re:Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, C... by spangry on Sunday December 11, 2016 @06:22AM (#13150593)

Dammit. That first 'withdrawals' was means to be 'overdoses'.

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Re:Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, C... by raverbashing on Sunday December 11, 2016 @06:46AM (#13150667)

Is Naloxone the substance that has a shorter life-time than Fentanyl, so you can OD "twice" if you're not careful?

Also, it's: "But its effects" (not it's)

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Re:Heroin deaths surpass gun homicides for the first time, C... by spangry on Monday December 12, 2016 @01:51AM (#13156163)

Yeah that's right. It wears off in about 60-90 minutes. Many of the commonly taken opioids (especially if taken orally) last much longer than that, so if the person experienced a severe overdose it's a good idea to monitor them for the duration (or even just administer small does at regular intervals). However, much of this depends on the initial route of administration. Intravenous would probably wear of the quickest. For fentanyl, Wikipedia says 30-60 mins, but that's at 'medically useful' dosage levels from what I can tell (remember, not all drugs are metabolised in a time-linear fashion).

I'd assume insuffilated Naloxone would last the longest, followed by intra-muscular and finally intravenous. And the inverse would be true regarding how long they would take to have an effect. I don't think taking it orally is a viable option for OD, as it would take much longer to have an effect, and much of it would be destroyed by your first-pass metabolism.

And yeah, me and apostrophes have not been getting along very well lately...

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