An op-ed by Evan Behrle, Special Advisor for Opioid Policy at the Health Department and Dr. Leana S. Wen, Baltimore City Health Commissioner:

In Baltimore, we spend a lot of time training people to use naloxone, the antidote medication that reverses an opioid overdose. At these trainings, we talk about the opioid epidemic — what caused it and how it escalated so quickly. These explanations are often unnecessary. Our city’s residents know the opioid epidemic. It has taken people they loved.

At each training, we talk about what our city is doing to reverse the tide of overdose deaths. We talk about the “standing order” — the blanket prescription for naloxone that makes it available without a prescription to all 620,000 residents.

We talk about how everyday residents have saved nearly 1,800 lives in the last two years. We talk about our city’s work to increase medical services to people with the disease of addiction: setting up a 24/7 hotline; offering individuals arrested for low-level drug offenses the choice of treatment instead of prosecution; and making on-demand treatment available in our emergency departments.

We do not talk about how these initiatives have led to a reduction in total overdose deaths, because they haven’t. Every day, we hear anecdotes from people who have their lives back because of our interventions, but our dedicated outreach workers cannot keep up with the rise of fentanyl and the toll of addiction. In 2014, our city had 305 overdose deaths. In 2015, we jumped to 393. In 2016, to 694. When the final number for 2017 comes in, it will be higher still.

Read the entire op-ed.