Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Learn volgabo here. Today's episode touches on
Speaker 1: drug use and misuse and on opioid overdoses in order
Speaker 1: to explain how opioids, overdoses and the lock zone work.
Speaker 1: It isn't graphic, but if you're not up for hearing
Speaker 1: about all that today, go ahead and skip this one
Speaker 1: and take care of yourself, okay. Opioids are a category
Speaker 1: of compounds that can interact with your nervous system and
Speaker 1: basically chill it out and if you're in pain, make
Speaker 1: you feel better temporarily. Your body makes some opioids called endorphins.
Speaker 1: Over the years, humans have developed a number of drugs
Speaker 1: that have similar effects. Some are manufactured and prescribed by
Speaker 1: doctors for pain relief. Others are made and sold illegally,
Speaker 1: but all of them can pretty easily cause physical and
Speaker 1: psychological dependence in the people who take them, which can
Speaker 1: lead to the misuse of these drugs, which can lead
Speaker 1: to overdoses. You've probably heard about how serious the opioid
Speaker 1: epidemic is. If you live in the United States, chances
Speaker 1: are that someone you personally know has been touched by it.
Speaker 1: Maybe that someone is you, or maybe you don't even
Speaker 1: know that you know that someone, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stigma around drug use and misuse. Prior to the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic, we were losing about seventy thousand Americans
Speaker 1: a year to opioid related deaths, including overdoses, and sadly,
Speaker 1: the stresses and isolation of the pandemic only made that
Speaker 1: number rise. The reasons that this epidemic has gotten this
Speaker 1: bad are many and complicated and a whole other episode
Speaker 1: or series of episodes, really, but one of the things
Speaker 1: we can all do to help curb it is learn
Speaker 1: what an overdose looks like and how to hopefully save
Speaker 1: the life of a person experience in one. So one
Speaker 1: of the effects of all opioids is that they bind
Speaker 1: to these receptors in your brain stem and slow your
Speaker 1: breathing down. This is part of why they're prescribed for
Speaker 1: pain relief, because in a small amount, that's the thing
Speaker 1: you might want. It slows your heart rate, lowers your
Speaker 1: blood pressure, and just overall lowers the stress level in
Speaker 1: your body while the drug is bound to those receptors.
Speaker 1: But if you take too much of an opioid, your
Speaker 1: breathing slows so much that it just stops. That's what
Speaker 1: kills people during an opioid overdose. They might look like
Speaker 1: they've kind of suddenly fallen asleep, but then you notice
Speaker 1: that they're not breathing. One opioid that is increasingly overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: responsible for overdoses is called fentanyl. This is a drug
Speaker 1: that was created by researchers a couple decades ago in
Speaker 1: response to an honestly good demand for better anesthetics for surgery. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: fentanyl is so powerful and inexpensive to make the people
Speaker 1: began producing it illegally and mixing it in with other
Speaker 1: drugs sold illegally, like powders and pressed pills. And it
Speaker 1: is really easy to overdose when ventinyl is involved because
Speaker 1: it's really strong. But there is a sort of antidote
Speaker 1: to opioid overdose. It's a medication called nlock Zone. That's
Speaker 1: the generic term for it. It's also often referred to
Speaker 1: as Narcan, which is a brand name for a version
Speaker 1: of nalock Zone that's administered via a nasal spray. There's
Speaker 1: also a brand of auto injectors called zo whatever the type.
Speaker 1: Nalock Zone works by knocking opioids off of those receptors
Speaker 1: in your brainstem, and then attaching to those receptors itself,
Speaker 1: blocking them up so the opioids can't get back on
Speaker 1: and your breathing starts returning to normal. It's like if
Speaker 1: you're at a dance club and some random person is
Speaker 1: acting rudely and one of your friends comes up and
Speaker 1: elbows them away and starts dancing with you instead. Nalock
Speaker 1: zone is totally safe to administer. I saw the former
Speaker 1: Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome Adams speak about it, and
Speaker 1: one of the things you would do is use one
Speaker 1: of those auto injectors on himself on stage to demonstrate
Speaker 1: how easy and safe it is. The auto injectors are
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to use, but a little bit
Speaker 1: less effective than the nasal spray. It's important to note
Speaker 1: that as scary as fentanyl is, it is safe to touch.
Speaker 1: There's this myth that rescuers who were handling an overdosing
Speaker 1: person or their drugs enough to administer n lock zone
Speaker 1: have then themselves overdosed from that brief skin contact, but
Speaker 1: it's not true. Fentanyl doesn't really absorb through your skin,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry that you're putting yourself
Speaker 1: in danger by helping someone else. And depending on how
Speaker 1: much of an opioid is in someone's system and how
Speaker 1: much nalock zone is administered during a single dose, it
Speaker 1: can take multiple doses to get someone breathing again. You
Speaker 1: should always call emergency dical care if someone is overdosing,
Speaker 1: even if you do administer in a lock zone, because
Speaker 1: they may stop breathing again and will need to be
Speaker 1: monitored for that and for acute withdrawal symptoms. You can't
Speaker 1: buy in a lock zone off the shelf. It's not
Speaker 1: like hyboprofin, for example, but you don't need a prescription
Speaker 1: for it. Either. You can go into pretty much any
Speaker 1: pharmacy and ask to buy it, or you can get
Speaker 1: in touch with one of the organizations in your community
Speaker 1: that works in harm reduction, prevention and recovery. Many programs
Speaker 1: offer both a lock zone and training about it for free.
Speaker 1: If you're assembling a first aid kit, especially for use
Speaker 1: in a public space, or if you or people you
Speaker 1: know use illegally obtained drugs, you should get in a
Speaker 1: lock zone and learn how to use it. Because people
Speaker 1: add ventanyl to all kinds of powders and pressed pills,
Speaker 1: even ones that look legitimate. You can also buy test
Speaker 1: trips online to test your drugs for ventanyl. The reasons
Speaker 1: that people have for using bioids and other drugs are
Speaker 1: just as complicated as as epidemic as a whole, but
Speaker 1: being prepared to save a life is pretty simple, and
Speaker 1: now you know the basic science of how it works.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by me and produced by Tyler
Speaker 1: clag brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuff works dot com. Four more podcasts my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.