SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KERO) — A mother in Sacramento claims her teenage son was given a dose of Narcan at a school assembly to take home.
Narcan is a drug medication used to counter the effects of opioid drug overdoses. The assembly was meant to educate, giving students pamphlets on how to use the medication and providing information that may be necessary in the case of an opioid overdose, however, the mother says she feared that her son's medical history left him vulnerable to a reaction if Narcan was used incorrectly.
"I was concerned and I was scared and I kind of freaked out and I kind of hit the fan and I grabbed it away from him like he was a two-year-old and put it up and I said 'you don't touch this.'"
Experts who study synthetic opioids understand that education about Narcan can be startling to parents and students, especially those who see free Narcan as an invitation to experiment.
"If the school could act immediately, and reverse that overdose, then the teenager has the chance to learn from that mistake, but otherwise it could be a fatal mistake when they weren't even aware they were taking a risk in the first place," said researcher Sarah Mars.
Programs to give Narcan to people after they are trained on how to administer it exist across the country.
