Naloxone is a controversial antidote. It does nothing to address addiction; and people who overdose and are revived with Naloxone may experience immediate, painful opioid withdrawal. Not infrequently, this leads the newly revived person to seek out more opioids.
The cost of Naloxone also varies widely, with factors including the form (such as injectable or nasal spray) and where it is being purchased. Prices quoted online range from about $40 to $125 a dose.
A survey of chronic-pain patients using prescription opioids showed nearly 20 percent had overdosed and more than half had engaged in high-risk activities, according to government statistics. Only 3 percent had a Naloxone prescription or were trained to deliver the antidote. Yet, nearly 40 percent had seen someone overdose.
Stories abound of repeated administrations to the same individuals, whose lives have been saved numerous times.
But sometimes, people who are revived accept their trip to the precipice of death as a wakeup call. Sometimes, they accept treatment if it's made available immediately. Sometimes, they are truly saved.
So Naloxone is not a cure to the opioid crisis by any means. But it has the potential to buy people time. It carries with it hope because when there's still life, there's still possibilities to turn that life around.
Naloxone is becoming more and more available. No longer is it dispensed only by first responders and medical professionals. The overdose antidote is now available to the general public in pharmacies across the country. But the increase of the drug's availability has been greeted with a price increase that not everyone can afford.
More and more, people who have contact with addicts and the general public are being encouraged to obtain Naloxone and be prepared to use it.
But some pharmacists are reportedly afraid to dispense it. And not everyone can afford to purchase it.
This all raises the question of whether anyone with an opioid prescription in their household should automatically be provided with Naloxone.
Pain patients don't get their prescriptions expecting that they or someone else will overdose. Tom Petty and Prince — both chronic pain sufferers — reportedly died of accidental opioid overdoses. If someone nearby had immediate access to Naloxone, might they still be alive?
Walmart is providing disposal kits to people with opioids to enable them to safely discard unused drugs. The idea is to prevent unneeded opioids from falling into the hands of people who would abuse them.
This can be a model for Naloxone distribution.
Pharmaceutical companies, which have made billions fomenting the opioid crisis and continue to make money from it, should fund this simple means to save the lives that the crisis is jeopardizing. Making Naloxone available and free with opioid prescriptions has the potential to save lives.
Opioid makers spent millions creating the crisis. They used incredibly creative ways to push the medical establishment to prescribe more and more opioids in the face of addiction fears that opioid makers successfully deflated.
They can use just a fraction of that marketing creativity, a portion of the billions they made selling opioids to unsuspecting pain patients, to address the crisis.
And one small thing they can to toward that end is to give away Naloxone.
This will not release Big Pharma from its responsibility in creating this crisis, from growing rich off the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
But it is a step, a very small step. It is the very least they can do.
Elaine Silvestrini is a writer for Drugwatch.com, a website that focuses on dangerous drugs and medical devices.