The opioid crisis — an epidemic of addiction to powerful prescription painkillers — is so bad in one Tennessee town that children as young as seven are being taught to administer Narcan, The New York Times reports. Narcan is the trade name of Naxalone, a medicine that can save the life of someone who has overdosed on opioids, if it’s administered in time.
The opioid crisis is a nationwide problem, but it’s hitting Appalachia the hardest, according to Nashville drug- and alcohol-treatment clinic Cumberland Heights. Poverty, social isloation, high unemployment rates and low access to care combine to make addiction and mortality rates from opioids significantly higher in parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and other states.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Elizabethton, Tennessee, where schoolchildren are being taught how to administer an antidote in the case of all-too-common overdoses.
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