Can Wichita afford for police, firefighters to carry life-saving drug?

A pharmacist pleaded with the Wichita City Council to budget money to equip police and firefighters with a life-saving emergency antidote to treat opiate overdoses.

Lisa Vayda said she wants first responders to carry a drug called naloxone. It comes in a nose-spray form that can easily and quickly be administered to a person who has overdosed, potentially keeping the person alive until an ambulance can arrive and paramedics can take more aggressive medical action, she said.

She said the drug could not only save the lives of people who overdose on heroin or opium-based prescription pain killers. It could also protect police officers and firefighters who might be inadvertantly exposed to high-strength “black tar” heroin when making drug busts or responding to emergency calls.

“I would just ask that the budget, at least consider, having the naloxone be carried by the Police Department and Fire Department, if for nothing else to protect themselves,” Vayda said.

Vayda made her plea at a City Council budget hearing Thursday night.

Police Chief Gordon Ramsay said he ran a naloxone pilot project when he was police chief in Duluth, Minn., and understands its value as a front-line treatment.

“If there was a way to get it, we’d use it,” Ramsay said. “I’ve seen it used. It saves lives.”

However, Ramsay said he’s not sure it’s affordable for Wichita, because the pharmaceutical industry has dramatically raised the price of the drug since his pilot program.

He said while the injected form of the drug costs about $13 a dose, the nose spray costs 10 times that due to demand from police and fire departments in states that are heavily affected by opiate addiction.

The Wichita Police Department has 450 patrol officers and the drug’s shelf life is only about a year, so supplies would need to be replaced on about an annual basis.

Vayda was part of a campaign earlier this year that succeeded in getting a state law passed to allow police and firefighters to carry and administer naloxone. Kansas and Wyoming were the only two states that didn’t allow that. The bill to change Kansas law passed unanimously in the House and Senate, Vayda said.

Wichita has not been as hard-hit by opiate addiction as some rust-belt states in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but it is a rising problem.

The Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center counted 211 opiate-overdose deaths in 2015. That’s up from 137 in 2011.

Many of the people overdosing aren’t sterotypical drug addicts, but people who developed a dependency after being treated with prescription pain medications such as oxycodone, experts say.

Crackdowns on the prescription opiate drugs have led to more use of illegal heroin, Timothy Rohrig, director of the regional forensic science center, recently told The Eagle.

It’s become harder to get the pharmaceutical opiates through illicit channels and some people have turned to heroin to feed their addiction, Rohrig said.

That brings a higher overdose risk because street heroin is of varying strength and purity, and drug dealers often mix it with even more potent drugs such as carfentanil, which is used to tranquilize elephants and other large mammals.

This story was originally published July 21, 2017 at 8:42 AM with the headline "Can Wichita afford for police, firefighters to carry life-saving drug?."