Pima County Deputies Saving Lives With Narcan

TUCSON, AZ — On April 25, just after 5 p.m., deputies were called to a strip mall on Kolb and Sunrise about someone doing drugs in the bathroom. They arrived to find a 25-year-old man, unresponsive, on the floor of the women's restroom. He was revived with a dose of Narcan, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.

On May 1, deputies saved a 41-year-old man found behind a business on Orange Grove and La Cholla. His pulse was weak and his breath faint. It was just before 9:30 in the morning. The Narcan dose revived him enough to get him to the hospital.

On March 25, deputies revived a woman found in a home near Snyder and Kolb.

PCSD has been supplying deputies with Narcan nasal sprays in their first aid kits since January.

Arizona's Legislature passed a law allowing access to naloxone, the generic version of this drug, without a prescription in 2016. Tucson Police have been carrying it since. Although PCSD had their Narcan doses paid for by the Arizona Department of Health Services, TPD paid $28,000 for 700 doses.

Now, they're widely available at pharmacies like Walgreens. Two school districts in Tucson, Amphitheater and TUSD, carry the nasal spray. TUSD officials said at least one of their students was revived with Narcan after overdosing.

Debbie Moak, director of the Governor’s Office of Youth, Faith and Family, focuses her efforts on substance abuse prevention, told the Capitol Times back in 2017 how important these drugs are.

“We must utilize every tool available to save people’s lives. Narcan, is the best tool we have available, the only tool when someone has overdosed to save their life,” Moak said. “We need to make sure that the average citizen, especially those who are being prescribed an opioid, the family and friends, they also need to know how to use this.”