In their op-ed, Dr. Leana Wen and State Health Officer and Commissioner of West Virginia Dr. Rahul Gupta, discuss the dire need for resources to combat the opioid epidemic in both urban and rural areas.

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In Baltimore, the health commissioner, Dr. Leana Wen, uses a need-based algorithm to decide which emergency rooms, needle-exchange vans, E.M.T.s and opioid outreach workers receive the city’s limited supply of naloxone — and which don’t. The drug, which reverses overdoses, has saved some 14,000 Baltimore residents since 2015. But its price has increased in recent years, by between 95 and 500 percent, depending on which version of the medication is being considered. Even with donations and discounts from drug makers, Dr. Wen says the city can’t afford all the naloxone it needs.

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During an opioid epidemic that has lowered the country’s life expectancy and cost the economy $95.3 billion in 2016, Baltimore City’s health commissioner has found herself having to ration the supply of the drug used to reverse opioid-related overdoses, naloxone.

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The House of Representatives, considering a legislative package to combat the opiod epidemic, won’t vote on the bill that Baltimore’s health commissioner says is “what we on the frontlines desperately need.”

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By the end of next week, the House will have considered more than 50 bills aimed at staunching the opioid crisis. The volume “may well be a record for legislating on a single issue,” Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said Tuesday on the House floor.

Leana Wen, Baltimore’s public health commissioner and a staunch advocate for expanding access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, released a statement encouraging Congress to consider a bill introduced by two Democrats, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.).

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In their op-ed, Dr. Wen and Public Citizen President Robert Weissman request the federal government take action and use their authority to reduce prices for the lifesaving drug naloxone.

"They can choose to lower prices and save lives. Or they can choose to perpetuate the rationing of lifesaving treatments and avoid offending Big Pharma at the cost of letting people across the country die for lack of access to affordable, easy-to-use naloxone delivery devices. We should not be priced out of the ability to save lives."

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Shortly after he was elected, Gov. Larry Hogan convened a high-level task force to address opioid addiction and overdoses in Maryland, and he eventually declared a state of emergency because of the problem. Yet the toll addiction has taken on communities across the state — urban, rural and suburban — remains unabated. The number of overdose deaths in the first three months of 2017 — the most recent data available — is more than double that from the same period in 2014, the year before Mr. Hogan took office. This isn’t just a Maryland problem, of course; addiction and overdoses have skyrocketed nationwide. But the fact remains that what we’re doing about the problem isn’t enough.

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Congress faced a startling public health and political problem throughout 2016 as the number of people dying from opioid addiction climbed. 

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IN COLUMBUS, OHIO, A teenage boy who was undergoing treatment for substance use disorder was surprised a couple years ago to learn he'd been infected with hepatitis C. The boy, then 17, was attending private school – and sharing needles with classmates to use heroin, says Dr. Carlos Malvestutto, infectious diseases fellowship program director at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus.

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