RFK Jr. to end 'godsend' Narcan program that helped reduce overdose deaths despite his past heroin addiction

www.latintimes.com

RFK Jr. to End 'Godsend' Narcan Program That Helped Reduce Overdose Deaths Despite His Past Heroin Addiction

Summary

Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., despite his history of heroin addiction, supports ending a $56 million federal Narcan distribution program that helped drive a nearly 24% drop in U.S. overdose deaths in 2024.

The program, administered by SAMHSA, trained over 66,000 people and distributed 282,500 kits.

Critics warn that cutting Narcan funding could reverse life-saving progress, especially as fentanyl-related overdoses persist.

Kennedy argues the crisis requires deeper societal change beyond "nuts and bolts" solutions, while public health advocates condemn the move as dangerously premature.

103 comments

Drug addict says, "fuck you, I got mine"
- You should work for the LA Times.
  You know how to write a headline.
  
  But this is the Latin Times
- Imagine being rich and getting addicted to heroin. Literal everything has been designed to benefit you - unlike your sister you weren’t born with the wrong chromosomes so any obnoxious behavior was written off. Never worrying about where your next meal would come from, how you’re going to get a job, dealing with mental illness you can’t afford to get treatment for…
  How much do you have to suck to fail so hard when everything has been lined up for you since birth?
  
  he drove his brother to heroin addiction and suicide by 28yo. and his 1st wife was driven to suicide and drinking, because he was forcing her to be a "stay at home wife" where her work is needs hands on, basically giving it up.
  
  well now he as non-human DNA in human, aka his brainworms.
"This administration is so unpredictable!"
Is it though? It seems pretty simple:
Does it help people and not directly benefit the ultra wealthy? Kill it.
Does it hurt people we don't like or boost the oppressive power of the state? Boost it!
That seems to be the Trump administration in a nutshell.
- "This administration is so unpredictable!"
  proceeds to act project 2025 as it was written
  Pikachu face
  
  I didn't read the whole thing, is he gonna stick with these tariffs or not?
- Yes, they're way too reliably wrong for it to be accidental.
- What was his uncle and father think of the man he has grown to become? What a evil horrible nan.
  
  I don't know about his uncle, but his father was a horrible, disgusting man. Likely the reason Trump, self admittedly, has not emotionally matured beyond a first grade level.
Kennedy argues the crisis requires deeper societal change beyond “nuts and bolts” solutions, while public health advocates condemn the move as dangerously premature.
Putting aside that "nuts and bolts" isn't even the right metaphor here, why wouldn't you save lives right now at the same time you, you know, fix society? This guy stops every few steps to chew his gum?
- That's just it, they don't care about saving lives. I wonder what the demographics are with people that need this help the most. If it's not majority white people, this is a great shot at killing off minorties without consequences.
  
  It’s the same kind of rhetoric they use against gun control. It’s always a mental health problem, but they won’t address that either because they prefer mentally ill people to suffer.
- I was like. The brain worms must have eaten that portion of his brain because he essentially said, we need more than the things that are holding everything together...
  
  his gouald must be still a larval form.
56 million to drop the OD death rate by nearly a quarter? This is exactly the sort of thing I want to see my taxes doing, directly improving people's lives, and the cost is a drop in the bucket for federal budgets.
And his reasoning is bullshit, you can work to address the deeper cause while mitigating the symptoms, it isn't an either/or
- Doubly infuriating is that they have NO intention of "addressing the deeper cause". This asshole drug addict is just "personal responsibility"-ing drug addiction.
  "Why don't you just have your family send you to the best treatment centers available like I did?!"
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
- Everything good must be backed up with "We'll fight you over this if we have to."
  
  I've taken to the approach of simply asking "are you willing to die for these beliefs?"
  
  Protests used to be the warning before the fight.
End yourself RFKJ.
- Just dropping this here on the off chance you dont have this saved to your phone or something yet. For me it's the gift that keeps on giving.
This is the same man who once sawed the head off of a whale, strapped it to his roof, then forced his children to endure being rained upon by whale juice.
Just internalize that. This man is in charge of health
- At least it's not the same guy who dumped a dead bear in Central Park oh wait it totally is!
- Thought to myself, that can’t possibly be true, but then:
  Kathleen Kennedy said when she was 6 years old, her dad got word that a dead whale had washed ashore. He got a chainsaw, cut off the whale’s head and strapped it to the roof of their minivan for a five-hour drive home.
  Source: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-kennedy-whale-investigation-09c494d8164c6f9bde9ece39637ea4d3
- I'm sorry, what?
  EDIT oh. But also still what?? Why???
- The only thing I can agree with him on is that people are eating too much unhealthy shit, and the food industry needs to do better.
  Literally everything else out of his mouth is utter lunacy.
Pro-Life Party in action.
“Much has been said over the last three months about Mexico and Canada,” Trump said. “But we have very large deficits with both of them. But even more importantly, they have allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.”
My, how quickly they abandoned the 'we must protect our people' reasoning used to justify tariffs.
Past? Have you drug tested him? Does he seem altogether put together?
- Drugs? Did someone mention drugs? The white house is teeming with drugs and drug users. RFK Jr is sure to get a little drug splash accidentally, of course. Look, he hates McDonalds but there we was chowing down with Krasnov.
I was at a music festival and a group of people were saying their friend stopped breathing. We confirmed and i supplied the narcan from a donation program and a friend who has administered it before brought him back while we called for paramedics who came within a few minutes and took over. The guy survived. RFKjerk wants that guy to have died. He has zero place in health or the government
- He has zero place on planet earth.
Well, opioid deaths were going down. Can't be having effective policy in this administration.
RFK, like the rest of the oligarchs, cannot appreciate how society allowed him to live his best life.
We NEED to send the Military to the Border to STOP FENTANYL DEATHS!
-The SAME people Stopping this CHEAPER Program that ACTUALLY stops FENTANYL Deaths!
- We NEED to send the military to Washington DC to STOP THIS ADMINISTRATION AND STOP FENTANYL DEATHS!
- If the problem can't be solved like an 80s antidrug action flick then they won't do anything.
Death cult
Kennedy argues the crisis requires deeper societal change beyond "nuts and bolts" solutions, while public health advocates condemn the move as dangerously premature.
So do that first brain worm. You could keep the program going while you work on all that.
- Ah but that's the conservative approach everywhere in the world. Yes there's a societal issue. No we won't do anything about it. Actually, correction: we will make it worse.
Of course he does. This mush mouthed brain dead stack of rotten shoe leather is a COMPLETE disgrace to the Kennedy name. The only thing keeping this sorry sack of shit out of a white jacket and a rubber room is his family's legacy AND MONEY.
- But what was the Kennedy name? Joe dealing with the mafia to get JFK elected? JFK escalating the Vietnam war? Bay of pigs? Ted at Chappaquiddick?
  
  Before that even -- Joe making big bucks on WWII.
- I wouldn't call the Kennedy name honorable exactly
We are being cleansed. It's pretty obvious isn't it?
Depopulation of the unwanted by those above us.
- it's not going to do that though
  
  More opioid users will die. How is that not doing it?
Republicans fully committed to their platform of spite and hate.
He is a danger to us all. The whole starting tariffs to punish Canada and Mexico for fentanyl making its way into the country was obviously a farce. They don’t give one single fuck about anybody but themselves!
This sucks. I worked in EMS through the peak of the opioid epidemic, and once Narcan became commonplace and widely available, our OD calls dropped noticably.
- You think we're past the peak? Honest question. As our lives get collectively, on average, worse over the next forever, you don't think more people will turn to hard drugs to cope?
  
  I'm not in the game anymore, so idk, but things had noticably improved for as much as I could tell (getting sent on 911 calls for it). I sure hope we're past the peak, but with the way things are going, we're about three days from RFK being fired for being too woke and being replaced with a fucking Sackler.
deeper societal change
Like UBI? Or a reduction in work hours? Or education programs? This jerk won't do any of that.
- He somewhat backed UBI when running for president. That idea is probably gone now under Trump but he wasn't against it not to long ago.
- That sounds like a lot of work when you have the old reliable conservative tactic of pretending the problem doesn’t exist while blaming the ill effects of the not-problem on the personal responsibility of the victims. And their mental health. And other dog whistles that they are lesser subhumans who don’t deserve help.
I honestly have no words... This one is hitting me in ways that I cannot describe. What these people have done to my generation through the creation of this epidemic is inhumane, and this step back has made me have a full blown cry. Hug the ones you love, you never know who is suffering. If you are reading this and you are suffering as well, know that you are loved too.
Past addiction?
- I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
  Mitch Hedberg
- that worm knew how to party.
Nurgle would be proud.
- Seriously though....
In conjunction with this, we are also getting rid of epi-pens in EMS vehicles, planes, and hospitals because this goes beyond a having allergies problem.
Does anyone know how long Narcan's shelf life is? I have some but I want to know if it is worth stocking up
- My understanding is that it's quite long. I saw cited a 90% effectiveness at 30 years.
- Used to be 2 years, recently changed to 3. Not sure if that’s due to some ingredient change though, so you’re better going with 2 I’d say. But I’m also an idiot. lol
Critics warn that cutting Narcan funding could reverse life-saving progress, especially as fentanyl-related overdoses persist.
Isn't that the idea?
- Yup, there's an alleged epidemic of fentanyl pouring through our borders, and we have resources to save lives. But that isn't their goal.
[RFK voice] I killed my brother by forcing hard drugs on him that he'd get addicted to and ultimately overdose. All I'm doing now is killing the American people that are addicted to drugs. What's not to understand about that?
The biggest public health issue we are facing is human stupidity.
The stupidity of many American citizens is a direct threat to our safety and well being.
He should check if he's still addicted once he gets rid of the narcan
I'm curios, does anyone know an ex heroin junky that went straight edge and didn't substitute heroin with another addiction? Because I don't
- Testosterone and steroids, at a minimum. Probably body dysmorphia brought on by destruction of his brain from decades of hard drug abuse plus a fucking brain worm
  That's the minimum. He probably got in with Elon's hookup.
He will do as the brain worm commands
These people want death. They are death worshippers.
- Truly, best I can tell, death is seen as the solution to many problems rather than, you know, solutions.
- Fascism is a death cult.
Locked. This is not the forum for political commentary
Why would his brain slug do this??
People act like RFK Jr. is such a bad guy. They forget it's not him. It's the worms.
- The worm is just another of RFK's victims.
  
  It died of starvation.

103 comments