The medicines that save the most lives for the weight carried are antibiotics for bacterial infection, pain and fever relief, an anti-diarrhoeal alongside rehydration, emergency treatment for severe allergy and asthma, and the long-term medicines that people in your group already depend on. Rank a drug by how serious the problem it treats is, how hard it is to replace, how well it keeps, and whether you can identify and use it correctly, and put the group’s own dependants first.
Part of Medicine Cabinet Raid
A salvaged cache has limited room, so ranking by seriousness, replaceability, keeping quality and identifiability decides what leaves the building.
Lives Per Gram Is The Right Measure
Tablets and capsules weigh little compared with their effect, so weight is rarely the limit; attention and knowledge are. The more useful question is what each drug is for, whether anything else can do the job, and whether you can use it safely.
Four Questions To Rank A Drug
- How serious is the problem it treats? Infection that can spread, severe allergy, uncontrolled diabetes and seizures can kill. Mild symptoms rarely do.
- How hard is it to replace? An antibiotic cannot be made without a pharmaceutical laboratory. Willow bark can ease pain, though it is no substitute; see Medicinal Plants.
- How well does it keep? Sealed solid tablets keep best; insulin and mixed liquids keep worst. See Shelf Life: Reality vs. Expiration Dates.
- Can you identify it and use it correctly? An unnamed tablet, or a drug you have no reference for, is not a resource.
The Four Groups
- Antibiotics. See Antibiotics. Infection is a leading preventable killer when medical care is gone.
- Pain and fever. See Pain & Fever Management. Common, low weight and widely useful, though each drug has hazards.
- Critical specialty medicines. See Critical Specialty Medications. Needed by particular people, and irreplaceable for them.
- Gut and breathing. See GI & Respiratory Essentials. Diarrhoea and asthma are common and can become emergencies.
Method: Build A Short List
Step 1: List the people. Write down who in your group takes a regular medicine, and what for. Their drugs move to the top whatever the group they belong to.
Step 2: Add the broad-spectrum antibiotics and basics. Take what you can name and read.
Step 3: Add a reference. A drug guide is worth carrying with the drugs; see Reference Books & Maps.
Step 4: Leave what you cannot use. Controlled drugs can cause conflict as well as harm; make a deliberate decision about them.
Common Mistakes
- Collecting by quantity, not usefulness. A shelf of unrelated drugs is not a plan.
- Forgetting that dependants exist. A missed insulin or seizure drug is an emergency for that person.
- Ranking by what is exciting. Strong opioids draw attention but serve a narrow need.
Safety
A list of drugs is not a list of doses
Every drug on these lists can harm if the wrong amount or the wrong drug is given, and the harm may not show for a day or more. Acetaminophen (paracetamol) overdose is silent at first and then fatal. This guide gives no doses; check a reference for every drug, and take a clinician’s advice wherever you can.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Antibiotics — the highest-impact group
- Combine with: Storage to Extend Medication Life — keeping what you carry out