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.

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Cost is one of the biggest hurdles in getting naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing drug, into more hands.

Evzio, a hand-held auto injector, has risen from less than $600 in 2014 to more than $4,000 for a two-pack now, according to members of Congress who say it’s time the government do something to tamp down on the price.

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The number of Americans who have died in the ongoing opioid epidemic continues to climb. Between September 2016 and September 2017, more than 45,600 Americans died from overdoses involving opioids. The number of fatal opioid-related overdoses in D.C. more than doubled between 2015 and 2016, and continued to rise in 2017. While Baltimore has not yet published its final numbers for the previous year, preliminary data for the first three quarters of 2017 suggests a similar trend.

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Shortly after Michael McMahon won Staten Island’s district attorney’s race in 2015, a young man collapsed on the street where he lived in the middle of the night. McMahon recounted this story and the approach he took as part of a panel organized by Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia Friday morning. The goal was to share lessons across cities, as Philadelphia wrestles with one of the nation’s highest overdose death rates amid a drug crisis that does not appear to be letting up.

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Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings from Baltimore are working on legislation that requires the federal government to provide $10 billion to help fight the opioid crisis. The planned legislation was released Wednesday.

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When Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued an advisory calling for more people to carry naloxone — not just people at overdose risk, but also friends and family — experts and advocates were almost giddy.

But the drug’s price is an issue, said Dr. Leana Wen, the city’s health commissioner, and an emergency physician. She suggested that the federal government negotiate directly for a lower price, or give more money to organizations and agencies like hers so they can afford to maintain an adequate supply.

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An op-ed by Evan Behrle, Special Advisor for Opioid Policy at the Health Department and Dr. Leana S. Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner:

In Baltimore, we spend a lot of time training people to use naloxone, the antidote medication that reverses an opioid overdose. At these trainings, we talk about the opioid epidemic — what caused it and how it escalated so quickly. These explanations are often unnecessary. Our city’s residents know the opioid epidemic. It has taken people they loved.

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At the second annual March for Science, speakers here called for political action using science to inform some of the most pressing public health issues of the day, including the opioid crisis, gun violence, and ongoing funding of research for medical cures. 

Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana S. Wen, MD, gave an impassioned speech calling for more money toward the purchase of naloxone to treat more people who are addicted to opioids. Soon after becoming health commissioner in January 2015, Wen issued a blanket prescription for naloxone to all of Baltimore's residents. That program has saved more than 1700 lives, but there's still not enough of the medication to meet the need.

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 Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church invited Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner to educate and bring awareness to the current opioid crisis.

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Deborah Woolford walked to the front of Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church in Baltimore on Sunday and rolled up her sleeve to learn firsthand how to treat someone overdosing on opioids.

The 61-year-old Old Goucher woman and another volunteer obliged Dr. Leana S. Wen, Baltimore’s health commissioner, as she demonstrated to the congregation the two ways of administering naloxone, the emergency, overdose-reversing drug known as Narcan.

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