Federal moves to help opioid crisis not enough, experts say (NBCNews.com)

Thursday Apr 5th, 2018

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. He said his office was working with manufacturers and insurance companies to help make it possible.

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

“Our problem isn’t the policies. It’s access to the medications,” Wen said. “We are being priced out of our ability to save lives.”

Wen said Baltimore needs $10 million a year from the federal government to fight the opioid epidemic.

“It cannot be one-time funding. It must be sustained,” she said. The discounted price offered by Kaleo is still too expensive," she said.

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To much fanfare last year, President Donald Trump ordered his administration to declare a public health emergency over the opioid epidemic. “As Americans, we cannot allow this to continue,” Trump said at the time. “It is time to liberate our communities from this scourge of drug addiction.”

When I’ve asked experts about these approaches, it’s not that any of them are bad. It’s that they fall short. For instance, Leana Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore (and soon-to-be president of Planned Parenthood), said that the Support for Patients and Communities Act “is simply tinkering around the edges.”

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