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U.S. Surgeon General visits Arkansas to encourage everyone to carry narcan

The Surgeon General is recommending more individuals, including family, friends and those who are personally at risk for an opioid overdose, also keep Narcan on hand.

There's not one solution to tackling the opioid addiction crisis. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams was in Little Rock to talk about what he's doing to fight it.

"We have a person dying every 12.5 minutes from an opioid overdose," said Dr. Adams.

Before we fight the crisis, Dr. Adams wants us to change our idea of the face of addiction.

"It may not be who you think," said Dr. Adams. “I’ve talked to mothers, suburban moms who had C-sections, were over-prescribed, and unfortunately are now injecting heroin.”

In Arkansas, Dr. Adams recognizes the effort to tackle this through partnerships.

"You’ve got health, talking to the medical side, talking to DEA,” said Dr. Adams.

One core issue is over-prescribing.

"Very honestly, we're still over-prescribing and have a lot of work to do in that front and I don’t blame doctors or prescribes for that solely, but we've got to look at the whole picture and look at how we can lower expectations for opioids,” said Dr. Adams.

Some data shows medical marijuana could be the answer, but before it's accepted, Dr. Adams thinks marijuana needs research like any other medication.

"When you talk about the medicinal properties of marijuana I do believe, because the science says, there are medicinal properties of components of marijuana, but we need to make sure we're doing the research,” said Dr. Adams.

Dr. Adams issued a public health advisory urging more people to carry naloxone, a lifesaving medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

"A safe drug, a readily available drug in Arkansas, and a drug which can save a life," said Dr. Adams.

He wants naloxone use to be as accepted as CPR, with common knowledge on overdose signs.

To those asking themselves why they should help, Dr. Adams wants people to reject the idea that there is a con to saving someone’s life.

"If we decided who was going to get medical treatments based on the poor decisions they made, the hospital would be empty," said Dr. Adams.

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