Surgeon General: Household naloxone access vital to opioid crisis solution (Washington Times)
Tuesday May 1st, 2018
Mark Curtis says the first time he nearly died from an opioid overdose, the room service guy found him in his Florida hotel.
Luckily, the paramedics who arrived that day in 2010 carried naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug that few Americans had heard about at the time.
“Had they not had it, I’d probably be dead,” he said.
Baltimore’s health department also distributes naloxone through churches and nonprofit groups, but limited government funding hasn’t caught up with the cost of the drug, Dr. Wen said, even at a discounted rate of $75 for a two-dose kit of Narcan for government purchasers.
“We cleared the path when it comes to policy. The problem that remains is the price,” she said. “We are being priced out of the ability to save people’s lives because we can’t afford it.”