Mary Kay Borgstrom - Comment

I stongly support the increase availability of Naloxone in the prevention of Opioid Overdose. Making naloxone availalble saves lives! I work as a nurse on a adult detox center at the University of Minnesota, Fairivew and we have noticed an alarming upward trend of 18 y o to 28 y o heroin addicts. Most started with abuse of narcotics then switched to heroin. Many are motivated to come to treatment because a friend overdosed and died. Recently I cared for a young male who came in because he himself nearly died of an overdose but a friend did rescue breathing and got him to an ER. Unfortunetly this friend overdosed the next day and died. We just had a high school student overdose on heroin and alcohol and died. As a mother and a nurse I request you make naloxone and needles available to the public. One idea would be to have public health and/ or pharmacy's distribute the medication/syringes after a person views an informational adminstartion/safety video on an i-pad. As a community in the Twin Cities we organized a multi -agencyOpioid coaltion to fight this horrific trend of young opioid abusers. Availability of Naxolone is one layer of a solution to this problem. Additonal prevention and public education measures are urgently needed for this nation wide epidemic. Thank you, Mary Kay Borgstrom RN Opioid Coalition Prevention Leader www.opioidcoalition.org