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CHICAGO (CBS) — As Riot Fest gets underway this weekend in Chicago, health officials want people to be safe and be aware of the signs that someone may be in distress because of drugs.
CBS News Chicago’s Jamaica Ponder sat down with Sarah Richardson of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) to learn more about the city continuing the free Narcan distribution program across 51 Chicago public libraries.
Sarah Richardson: Narcan is the brand name of the medication naloxone, and naloxone is a medication that reverses an opioid overdose. Probably most folks have heard of this drug called fentanyl. We are hearing about it all over the country. Fentanyl is an opioid. So if you ingest fentanyl, you have a risk of experiencing an opioid overdose. And that’s sort of the problem we’re seeing reflected on right now is it’s an extremely potent or powerful opioid.
So what that means is you can ingest just a really, really small amount and that can still cause an overdose and even a fatal overdose. And so what we’re seeing is that fentanyl is being intentionally or unintentionally, mixed into a wide array of substances. So things like cocaine, things like sort of a pill, like because Xanax or something that you’ve purchased illegally.
Those types of drugs, there’s a risk now nationwide, not just in Chicago, that they have fentanyl in them. And so what that means is that someone thinks that they’re just using just cocaine, but that actually has fentanyl in it, can cause an overdose. And if that person doesn’t have Narcan with them or they haven’t able to test their drugs and ensure that it really is just cocaine, then the chance of fatal overdose in particular really increases.
And Narcan is a nasal spray. You just give it right up their nose and it will wake them up. It will allow them to start breathing again so that we can save their life. It’s really important when you administer Narcan that you also call 911. Narcan is a medication that any of us can administer and carry legally in Illinois.
Jamaica Ponder: And so what does an opioid overdose look like? How would I be able to recognize that somebody might be in trouble?
SR: So if someone has really slow or stopped breathing, or if their skin is turning kind of bluish or pale or ashy colored, if their lips are pale, if they have, we call them like really restricted pupils, really small pupils. Those are all signs of overdose. They can also be kind of gurgling or having a hard time breathing and making kind of a strange noise.
And if you rub their chest pretty hard and they don’t wake up from that, that’s another indication that they might be overdosing on opioids. And an important thing to know about Narcan is that if you give it to someone who is not overdosing on opioids, it will not harm them. So you really can’t hurt someone by giving them Narcan if you think they’re experiencing an opioid overdose.
JP: What is it like if I want to go and pick up from the city? What is that experience like? Do I need to give you any of my personal information? Is it anonymous? Just so people can have an idea if they’re thinking about stopping by one of your locations.
SR: Thanks for that question. I think that’s really important. So we offer Narcan at 51 Chicago Public Libraries, which right now it’s all of the libraries on the north and west sides of the city. And most of the libraries on the south side as well as our locations around the city. So CDPH has STI (sexually transmitted infections) clinics, mental health centers and our office downtown in the Loop.
You will walk in. You do not need to offer any information. You do not need to speak to anyone. We collect no personal information of any kind. The Narcan is available in little plastic boxes on the wall, kind of right in the lobby area of each of these places. There’s a lot of Narcan, and now you can take as much as you want. You can can empty out the box if you want all of them.
And then you can also get fentanyl test kits in the same way from us in our downtown Loop office at 333 South State Street and also at our STI clinics. We have one in Lakeview, one in Austin and one in Roseland on the South Side.
JP: And those fentanyl test kits allow people to test their drugs?
SR: Yeah. So they have the test strips in them that I was talking about earlier. So you folks can dilute a little bit of substance and water, test for fentanyl. And it also has the instructions, some little cups and stir sticks so that folks can actually have everything they need to test with that kit. Make sure that you always have Narcan, whatever type of substance you’re using, carry Narcan, because that will reverse the overdose.
And I think the other really important thing is, to the extent possible, try not to mix your drugs when you when you use multiple different drugs at the same time, your risk of overdose and sort of complicated factors around overdose increases.
Source: ChicagoCBS
