Jerome Adams urged Americans to consider getting trained to administer naloxone, a drug used broadly by first responders that has proven highly effective in reversing opioid overdoses. 

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen said she is being forced to ration naloxone because the city doesn’t have the finances to buy as much as it needs. 

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Anybody who knows someone at risk of an opioid overdose should always carry naloxone, the anti-overdose drug, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said Thursday. 

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said the plan is a good first step.

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Dr. Wen appeared on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt to discuss the Surgeon General's Advisory urging Americans to carry naloxone. 

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US Surgeon General Jerome Adams will on Thursday issue a nationwide advisory — the first from his office in 13 years — for more people to get access to and training for the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

“Unfortunately, we are having to ration naloxone because we simply don’t have the resources to purchase this life-saving antidote,” Baltimore health commissioner Leana Wen said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Every week, we count the doses we have left and make hard decisions about who will receive the medication and who will have to go without.”

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The surgeon general in a rare public health advisory is calling on more Americans to carry a potentially life-saving medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Leana Wen urged the federal government to make naloxone more affordable, suggesting it negotiate a discounted rate with manufacturers or provide funds for increased access to treatment. 

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The surgeon general issued the office’s first advisory in 13 years — calling on more people to carry the opioid overdose antidote naloxone.

Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, has seen some of this firsthand. In the past, naloxone has typically required a prescription. But in 2015, her office issued a standing order that effectively acted as a blanket prescription for the entire city of Baltimore.

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A slim majority of Americans see prescription drug addiction as a disease that requires medical treatment, but most would not welcome those suffering from the problem into their neighborhoods, workplaces, or families. 

Those figures worry Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana Wen, who says it’s counterproductive to blame people for their medical conditions. 

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It’s been 13 years since a United States Surgeon General issued a public health advisory, but on Thursday Jerome Adams did so to urge every person to carry the overdose-reversal medication naloxone.

In response to Thursday’s announcement, Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, arguably naloxone’s most ardent advocate, asked for more financial assistance as local officials have already been trying to get the medication into the hands of every person — and that’s been costly.

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The United States Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, issued a national advisory Thursday urging more Americans to keep on hand and learn how to use the drug, naloxone, which can save the lives of people overdosing on opioids. Naloxone has already revived thousands of overdose victims as the opioid epidemic has intensified, but rescue workers have usually been the ones to administer it.

Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner in Baltimore, said her city has to ration naloxone because it can’t afford to keep a stockpile on hand. She called on the Trump administration to negotiate directly with the manufacturers of naloxone to make it available at a steeply discounted rate. 

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