Kentucky launches website to help addicts find naloxone

Kentucky launched a website Wednesday that will help heroin and opiate addicts find pharmacies that dispense naloxone, a drug that reverses an opioid overdose.

Ky.StopOverdoses.ky.gov provides a map of more than 300 pharmacies across the state that stock the drug. People can enter their zip code and find the nearest pharmacy. Other locations -— such as health departments — will be added soon, state officials said Wednesday.

Through a change in Kentucky law, pharmacies are now allowed to prescribe and dispense the medication through an agreement with a physician. Prescriptions can be for the opioid user or a family member or friend.

The site was launched by the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy in partnership with Advancing Pharmacy Practice in Kentucky Coalition, the Kentucky Agency for Substance Abuse Policy and the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy.

Since June 2015, close to 1,200 pharmacists have been certified to dispense naloxone under the new law, said Dr. Trish Freeman, director of the Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy.

The website includes other information including facts about naloxone, which is also referred to by its brand name Narcan. It also reminds people of Kentucky’s “Good Samaritan Law,” which protects people from prosecution when they report a drug overdose. Another state law also allows for those who are suffering from addiction to be put into treatment involuntarily.

Kentucky’s overdose deaths from heroin and combinations of heroin and other drugs such as fentanyl and carfentanil, a powerful tranquilizer used on elephants, have climbed over the past several years.

Carfentanil-laced heroin is particularly deadly. It can take several doses of naloxone to revive someone who has overdosed from a heroin and carfentail overdose.

Since January, four people in Kentucky have died of overdoses from a mix of heroin and carfentanil, according to data from the Kentucky Medical Examiner’s office.

Those carfentanil-related overdose deaths have occurred in Fayette, Jefferson, Rowan and Grant counties.

This story was originally published November 2, 2016 at 11:25 AM with the headline "Kentucky launches website to help addicts find naloxone."