In spite of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the opioid reversal drug Narcan to be sold over the counter this year, some locations have not yet caught on, Stateline reports. A survey conducted by the University of Mississippi in that state found that 41% of pharmacy researchers efused to dispense naloxone (also known as Narcan), and only 37% had it available for same-day pickup. Most pharmacies said Narcan required a prescription, which is false. Mississippi enacted a law authorizing pharmacists to sell Narcan in 2017. The drug, which can be administered via nasal spray or injection, can prevent death from overdose by blocking the effect of opioids in the body.
“It seems like that refusal might have been driven by a lack of education about the state’s naloxone policy,” said Emily Gravlee, a pharmacist and a doctoral candidate at the University of Mississippi who directed the secret-shopper study. Now, residents in every state can buy Narcan at their local pharmacy without a prescription — at least in theory. As the Mississippi researchers and other studies have found, pharmacies don’t always keep the drug in stock. Spray can be pricey for people paying out of pocket; a two-dose pack of Narcan typically retails for about $45-$50. As an over-the-counter medicine, it may not be covered by insurance. In the past year, more states and municipalities have launched programs to distribute hundreds of thousands of doses of naloxone for free in a myriad of ways. Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. have risen fivefold over the past two decades, claiming nearly 107,000 lives from last June to this June. Today, overdose deaths are overwhelmingly caused by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.
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