Santa Barbara County ranked sixth per capita in California in emergency room encounters for heroin overdoses, according to a new report from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. San Luis Obispo County was fourth. What’s more, the report indicates such cases are increasing at a faster rate in these neighboring counties. Last year, 65 individuals were treated and released at a Santa Barbara hospital — a tenfold jump in the last decade. S.L.O.’s numbers increased by 14 times in the same time frame.
This news comes at a time when the price of naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses, reportedly rose to as much as 17 times its original cost. As heroin takes an unprecedented number of lives nationwide, the demand for the drug has gone up.
Like an EpiPen, Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, can be administered by injection into a patient’s muscle by IV, or — increasingly popular — by a nasal spray. “It saves lives,” said Jimmy Dane, a Santa Barbara paramedic. The drug functions like a slap across the face, almost as though a patient immediately experienced a withdrawal. Dane looks for small pupils and abnormally slow respiration. “It’s usually obvious,” he said. “Any hunch it’s an overdose, we’ll give this immediately.” If the person is not actually overdosing, naloxone is harmless.