How the D.C. region is responding to the opioid crisis (D.C. Policy Center)
Monday Apr 30th, 2018
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.
In Baltimore, which recorded 628 of Maryland’s total 1,856 opioid-related deaths in 2016, Dr. Wen says, “We have seen that naloxone saves lives.” In October 2015, Dr. Wen issued a blanket prescription to every resident of the city, and since then Baltimore residents have used the drug to save at least 1,785 lives. “We should be doing everything we can to increase access to treatment,” she says, “but at the same time we should be increasing access to naloxone.”