Baltimore’s short on a lifesaving drug. Declaring the opioid crisis a national emergency can help.

 If the paramedics had gotten there two minutes later, Darrin Dorsey would be dead. “Through the process you don’t even know you are about to die or you’re dead,” said Dorsey. “You only know what happened to you when you wake up and someone tells you.”

He recalled overdosing on fentanyl-laced heroin nearly two weeks ago. Dorsey’s near-death experience comes as Baltimore city officials have been trying to get naloxone, an overdose reversal medication better known by its brand name Narcan, into the hands of every person. First responders aren’t the only ones who save lives in this city, civilians can too. 

Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen said it’s important to think about addiction as we would other diseases. Take heart disease, specifically a heart attack, she said. “There is an acute treatment that we need to give to them right now,” said Dr. Wen. “If their heart is stopped we have to use a defibrillator, we have to save their lives right now.” Now, equate a defibrillator to naloxone.

Read the entire story.