There Isn't Enough Narcan to Fix This

Abstract

The United States is facing a public health emergency associated with the significant increase in drug overdoses in recent years. Statistics collected from the US Department of Health and Human Services from 1999 to 2017 tell a story of more than 700,000 deaths from drug overdoses with almost 400,000 of those dying from an opioid overdose, including both prescription and illegal opioids. 1 Scholl L Seth P Kariisa M Wilson N Baldwin G Drug and opioid-involved overdose deaths – United States, 2013-2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2018; 67: 1419-1427 Crossref PubMed Scopus (980) Google Scholar Roughly 68% of the more than 70,200 drug overdose deaths in 2017 involved an opioid. This opioid overdose rate is 6 times higher than it was in 1999. Unceremoniously, 130 people in the United States die every day from an opioid overdose. 2 Wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research (WONDER). CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, Atlanta, GA2017http://wonder.cdc.gov Google Scholar John R. Clark, JD, MBA, NRP, FP-C, CCP-C, CFC, CMTE, is the chief operating officer of the International Board of Specialty Certification (IBSC) and legal advisor for the International Association of Flight and Critical Care Paramedics (IAFCCP).