Overflow Crowd Attends Narcan Responder Training

BURLEIGH – The Lighthouse Church organized and hosted a training session March 12 for the public in the use of naloxone as an emergency response to an opiate overdose.
With training provided by the John Brooks Rehabilitation Center from Atlantic City, the attempt to limit registrations to 75 people failed as the number of individuals who tried to enroll forced the creation of a second list. In the end, the church set up over 100 chairs and found the space taken up with people who felt a need to learn the first principles of response to an overdose.
“This shows how great the need is in Cape May County,” said Robin Hetherington.
Hetherington is administrator of Christians United for Recovery (CURE) which she describes as a ministry of The Lighthouse Church but it is also an organization uniting many other churches and working with numerous community organizations.
CURE works with addicts and with their families to gain access to information and resources required to deal with hopelessness that families often feel when coping with a loved one’s addiction. One recovering addict at the training session, Joseph Vanaman, said, “I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for this church.”
Why does naloxone or Narcan as it is more popularly known, require training for the public? Narcan is a drug that can reverse an opiate overdose, at least temporarily, and buy time for emergency assistance to get to the individual.
Recently it has been put into the hands of first responders, police and paramedics. Now there is a drive to put the drug into the hands of people who abuse drugs and their families. Families and friends are in a position to respond immediately before emergency medical services can arrive.
That proximity and the increasing death toll due to opiate overdoses is why advocates argue naloxone and the training required to administer it should be given to the public.
It is not a move without critics. Some argue that easy access to the drug provides a sense of security that encourages drug abuse. There are concerns about proper training and about rising costs of Medicaid, a needs-based program for which many addicts qualify.
Some also fear that fear its availability may keep family members from calling for medical assistance if they think the drug can solve the immediate problem of an overdose.
The White House Office of Drug and Control Policy says that the number of overdose deaths involving opiates has been rising rapidly, a 45 percent increase involving heroin from 2006 to 2010. That is enough to prod 17 states to allow naloxone to be distributed to the public.
New Jersey passed a law last year to permit public access to the drug after getting trainied. That requirement for training, and the protection it provides under state law for those administering the drug, is the reason the training session in Court House was in such demand.
Diana Weiner, a registered nurse with the Brooks Center, conducted the training session and continuously tried to allay the apprehension of individuals who may be called on to administer the drug to a loved one in a life-and-death situation.
“If you can use a nasal spray, you can do this,” she said. She impressed on the audience throughout the session that step one is always call 911. Using naloxone is a step to buy time. It is not a replacement for medical assistance.
The drug is considered a very effective response when used properly. Naloxone works by displacing the opiates from receptors in the nervous system and helping the body to remember to breathe. The drug only works with opiate induced-overdoses or overdoses where at least one of the drugs used was an opiate. While the common image is of a heroin overdose, Weiner pointed to the sharp increases in overdoses due to abused prescription drugs such as Oxycontin or Percocet, both opiates.
Kits were handed out after the session. Each contained two doses of the drug to be administered as a nasal spray, gloves, a face mask for rescue breathing if the situation requires it, and a card that can be filled in and mailed back for replacement doses. The kits are numbered and recorded with the name of the individual who was trained and received it.
The session covered use of the drug, techniques for dealing with an overdose situation, and proper storage of the drug. It also stressed the fact that while naloxone only works on opiates, administering it when one is unsure of the underlying drug that is causing the overdose cannot do any harm. If the problem is caused by a non-opiate drug, the naloxone will not cause harm.
The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported on overdose mortality rates and the article was passed out to all in attendance. The Inquirer reported that Cape May County has the highest mortality rate in New Jersey.
While some might debate the article, the point seemed clear. There is a very real problem in Cape May County and the training session organized by CURE tapped into a vein of anxiety and concern among many in the public.
Vanaman said that he could leave the church and easily score drugs in the Villas, his home town, or in many other locations in the county. The price? He put it at $40 a bundle, which contains 14 bags. Vanaman’s own habit before he started his current recovery was 3 bundles a day. He started experimenting with drugs at the age of 13 and had graduated to heroin by 16. Just a week shy of his 29th birthday, Vanaman went to prison for stealing copper to feed his habit. He suffers from speech problems and seizures due to brain damage he says doctors attribute to drug abuse.
A graduate of Lower Cap May Regional High School, Vanaman found odd jobs in roofing, siding, and landscaping that allowed him to continue his habit until the increasing amounts required led him to crime and a four year prison sentence. His sentence over about a year ago and his current recovery in its fifth month, Vanaman took his kit but says he is not the one who will need it. The tragedy of his story, much of it caused by his own decisions he admits, was present in families across the room.
Naloxone and the training to use it properly buys time in an overdose situation. Only a host of other services and an addict committed to recovery can buy back a life. CURE understands that and tries to aid families by connecting to the resources that can help. “We are a clearinghouse,” Hetherington said. Vanaman says he won’t go back to his earlier life and is a regular at the Thursday evening help sessions at the church. He says the county needs a recovery center of its own. “It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would help,” he says.
The same could be said for the naloxone training. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it may just help.
The Lighthouse Church is located at 1248 Route 9 South, Court House. CURE’s phone is 778-2009. The email is: cureministry@gmail.com.