The Trump administration should invoke government authority to slash prices of a life-saving overdose drug or provide funding to expand access amid the coast-to-coast opioid epidemic, Baltimore's health department and a national advocacy group said Thursday. 

"What's short is our willpower to do something about it," said Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, who issued an innovative blanket prescription for naloxone in 2015.

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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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In an op-ed by Mayor Catherine Pugh and Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, they discuss Baltimore's response to the opioid epidemic, including a new initiative involving the City's 11 hospitals.

"The Baltimore City Health Department is working with our hospital systems to create “levels of care” that enshrine best practices for responding to the epidemic and publicly recognize hospitals that implement those practices."

Read the entire op-ed.