Baltimore health officials are working to fight the rising number of drug overdoses in the city by making the drug naloxone available for over-the-counter purchases.

City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said that in this time of public health emergency everyone must be able to carry naloxone and save lives. Naloxone is used to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose.

“This is at epidemic rates at this point,” Steve Dixon, president of the Penn North Recovery Center said. “In the last month alone, I personally knew at least 16 people who passed away."

Preliminary data from the Baltimore City Health Department shows there were 481 fatal overdoses between January and September 2016.

Health officials said naloxone has saved more than 800 lives since 2015.

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Citing the deadly opioid crisis, Baltimore officials made it easier on Thursday to acquire an overdose-reversing drug over the counter, saying the antidote should be as prevalent as possible to prevent more deaths.

City Health Commissioner Leana Wen waived training requirements for acquiring and using naloxone, a fast-acting medication that’s become a vital and ubiquitous tool in fighting the nation’s heroin and prescription painkiller crisis.

Dr. Wen said the training only took a few minutes — naloxone can be administered as a nasal spray or injected into the muscle, like an EpiPen. But the associated paperwork was cumbersome, so she implemented a recent state law allowing her to scrap the training altogether.

“Any resident can go into any of our pharmacies in Baltimore City and immediately get the medication for saving someone’s life,” she said.

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Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen signed a new standing order making an antidote that reverses the effects of opioids available over the counter.

Medicaid patients can get the medication for $1, those who can’t afford it, can get it for free. Dr. Wen said she would eventually like to see Narcan added to first aid kits.

Drug overdoses are becoming what Wen calls a “public health emergency.”

The new law ensures that everyone in Baltimore City has access to a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose.

Powerful synthetic drugs are claiming the lives of thousands of Marylanders every year.

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Dr. Leana Wen, Baltimore City health commissioner, signed a new standing prescription for naloxone that allows residents to acquire the opioid overdose antidote without first getting trained to use the drug.

The move, which effectively makes naloxone available over-the-counter, reflects changes in state law from the Heroin and Opioid Prevention Effort, or HOPE Act, recently passed by the General Assembly.

Officials said the training wasn't cumbersome but paperwork for it was inhibiting outreach workers' ability to get naloxone in the hands of more residents.

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