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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Learn volgabo here. Today's episode touches on

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Speaker 1: drug use and misuse and on opioid overdoses in order

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Speaker 1: to explain how opioids, overdoses and the lock zone work.

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Speaker 1: It isn't graphic, but if you're not up for hearing

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Speaker 1: about all that today, go ahead and skip this one

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Speaker 1: and take care of yourself, okay. Opioids are a category

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Speaker 1: of compounds that can interact with your nervous system and

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Speaker 1: basically chill it out and if you're in pain, make

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Speaker 1: you feel better temporarily. Your body makes some opioids called endorphins.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, humans have developed a number of drugs

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Speaker 1: that have similar effects. Some are manufactured and prescribed by

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Speaker 1: doctors for pain relief. Others are made and sold illegally,

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Speaker 1: but all of them can pretty easily cause physical and

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Speaker 1: psychological dependence in the people who take them, which can

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Speaker 1: lead to the misuse of these drugs, which can lead

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Speaker 1: to overdoses. You've probably heard about how serious the opioid

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Speaker 1: epidemic is. If you live in the United States, chances

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Speaker 1: are that someone you personally know has been touched by it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that someone is you, or maybe you don't even

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Speaker 1: know that you know that someone, because there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of stigma around drug use and misuse. Prior to the

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic, we were losing about seventy thousand Americans

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Speaker 1: a year to opioid related deaths, including overdoses, and sadly,

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Speaker 1: the stresses and isolation of the pandemic only made that

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Speaker 1: number rise. The reasons that this epidemic has gotten this

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Speaker 1: bad are many and complicated and a whole other episode

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Speaker 1: or series of episodes, really, but one of the things

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Speaker 1: we can all do to help curb it is learn

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Speaker 1: what an overdose looks like and how to hopefully save

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Speaker 1: the life of a person experience in one. So one

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Speaker 1: of the effects of all opioids is that they bind

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Speaker 1: to these receptors in your brain stem and slow your

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Speaker 1: breathing down. This is part of why they're prescribed for

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Speaker 1: pain relief, because in a small amount, that's the thing

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Speaker 1: you might want. It slows your heart rate, lowers your

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Speaker 1: blood pressure, and just overall lowers the stress level in

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Speaker 1: your body while the drug is bound to those receptors.

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Speaker 1: But if you take too much of an opioid, your

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Speaker 1: breathing slows so much that it just stops. That's what

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Speaker 1: kills people during an opioid overdose. They might look like

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Speaker 1: they've kind of suddenly fallen asleep, but then you notice

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Speaker 1: that they're not breathing. One opioid that is increasingly overwhelmingly

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Speaker 1: responsible for overdoses is called fentanyl. This is a drug

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Speaker 1: that was created by researchers a couple decades ago in

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Speaker 1: response to an honestly good demand for better anesthetics for surgery. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: fentanyl is so powerful and inexpensive to make the people

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Speaker 1: began producing it illegally and mixing it in with other

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Speaker 1: drugs sold illegally, like powders and pressed pills. And it

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Speaker 1: is really easy to overdose when ventinyl is involved because

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Speaker 1: it's really strong. But there is a sort of antidote

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Speaker 1: to opioid overdose. It's a medication called nlock Zone. That's

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Speaker 1: the generic term for it. It's also often referred to

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Speaker 1: as Narcan, which is a brand name for a version

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Speaker 1: of nalock Zone that's administered via a nasal spray. There's

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Speaker 1: also a brand of auto injectors called zo whatever the type.

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Speaker 1: Nalock Zone works by knocking opioids off of those receptors

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Speaker 1: in your brainstem, and then attaching to those receptors itself,

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Speaker 1: blocking them up so the opioids can't get back on

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Speaker 1: and your breathing starts returning to normal. It's like if

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Speaker 1: you're at a dance club and some random person is

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Speaker 1: acting rudely and one of your friends comes up and

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Speaker 1: elbows them away and starts dancing with you instead. Nalock

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Speaker 1: zone is totally safe to administer. I saw the former

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Speaker 1: Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams speak about it, and

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Speaker 1: one of the things you would do is use one

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Speaker 1: of those auto injectors on himself on stage to demonstrate

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Speaker 1: how easy and safe it is. The auto injectors are

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Speaker 1: a little bit easier to use, but a little bit

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Speaker 1: less effective than the nasal spray. It's important to note

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Speaker 1: that as scary as fentanyl is, it is safe to touch.

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Speaker 1: There's this myth that rescuers who were handling an overdosing

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Speaker 1: person or their drugs enough to administer n lock zone

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Speaker 1: have then themselves overdosed from that brief skin contact, but

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Speaker 1: it's not true. Fentanyl doesn't really absorb through your skin,

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Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry that you're putting yourself

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Speaker 1: in danger by helping someone else. And depending on how

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Speaker 1: much of an opioid is in someone's system and how

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Speaker 1: much nalock zone is administered during a single dose, it

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Speaker 1: can take multiple doses to get someone breathing again. You

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Speaker 1: should always call emergency dical care if someone is overdosing,

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Speaker 1: even if you do administer in a lock zone, because

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Speaker 1: they may stop breathing again and will need to be

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Speaker 1: monitored for that and for acute withdrawal symptoms. You can't

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Speaker 1: buy in a lock zone off the shelf. It's not

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Speaker 1: like hyboprofin, for example, but you don't need a prescription

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Speaker 1: for it. Either. You can go into pretty much any

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Speaker 1: pharmacy and ask to buy it, or you can get

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Speaker 1: in touch with one of the organizations in your community

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Speaker 1: that works in harm reduction, prevention and recovery. Many programs

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Speaker 1: offer both a lock zone and training about it for free.

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Speaker 1: If you're assembling a first aid kit, especially for use

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Speaker 1: in a public space, or if you or people you

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Speaker 1: know use illegally obtained drugs, you should get in a

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Speaker 1: lock zone and learn how to use it. Because people

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Speaker 1: add ventanyl to all kinds of powders and pressed pills,

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Speaker 1: even ones that look legitimate. You can also buy test

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Speaker 1: trips online to test your drugs for ventanyl. The reasons

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Speaker 1: that people have for using bioids and other drugs are

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Speaker 1: just as complicated as as epidemic as a whole, but

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Speaker 1: being prepared to save a life is pretty simple, and

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Speaker 1: now you know the basic science of how it works.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by me and produced by Tyler

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Speaker 1: clag brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how stuff works dot com. Four more podcasts my

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Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.