Narcan You Hear Me Now?

“Last February, when a teen-age boy died of a fentanyl overdose in Kyle, Texas, south of Austin, local law enforcement hoped that it was an isolated incident … Then, in May, a fifteen-year-old named Noah Rodriguez was found unresponsive after taking drugs; he spent four days in a coma before recovering. In June, another local high-school student suffered a fatal overdose. Weeks later and a few blocks away, a teen-age girl was found dead in her room with slivers of a blue pill on the windowsill by her bed. ‘At that point I knew—there’s something coming,’ Barnett said. ‘This is a tidal wave.'” The New Yorker: The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a Texas County.

+ “Rallying voices are trying to fix this community under siege. But it’s unclear if the story of Española, where a quarter of the population is poor and the murals of the dead are painted on junction boxes, will be a narrative about how to save a town from addiction — or lose it.” LA Times: Can this town save itself from fentanyl addiction? The race to turn around a threatened community.

+ The FDA approves the overdose-reversing drug Narcan for over-the-counter sales. “Today’s action paves the way for the life-saving medication to reverse an opioid overdose to be sold directly to consumers in places like drug stores, convenience stores, grocery stores and gas stations, as well as online.” (Hurry.)