Baltimore allows over-the-county purchase of naloxone (WBAL)

Monday Jun 5th, 2017

Baltimore health officials are working to fight the rising number of drug overdoses in the city by making the drug naloxone available for over-the-counter purchases.

City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said that in this time of public health emergency everyone must be able to carry naloxone and save lives. Naloxone is used to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose.

“This is at epidemic rates at this point,” Steve Dixon, president of the Penn North Recovery Center said. “In the last month alone, I personally knew at least 16 people who passed away."

Preliminary data from the Baltimore City Health Department shows there were 481 fatal overdoses between January and September 2016.

Health officials said naloxone has saved more than 800 lives since 2015.

Read the entire story. 

Related Stories

Lead poisoning cases fell 19 percent in Baltimore last year, even as more children tested for exposure (Baltimore Sun)

The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin.

Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday.

Read the entire story.

Azar Unveils Plan to Help Pregnant Patients Quit Opioids (MedPage Today)

States will get help from the federal government integrating services for pregnant and postpartum Medicaid patients with opioid use disorder under a pilot program announced Tuesday by Health and Hu

Trump declared an emergency over opioids. A new report finds it led to very little. (Vox)

To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

Read the entire story.

Visit the Newsroom