In February, the House and Senate announced a budget agreement that includes $6 billion over two years to address the opioid epidemic further. Reducing morbidity and mortality and its concurrent health and societal costs is a great investment for some of these resources. In pondering return on investment and cost effectiveness, naloxone should immediately come to mind.

There is no question that the effects of opioid abuse in all of its forms including lethal overdoses, are a public health priority for us as a nation.

It seems that every day there is an instance of an opioid-related item in the local, regional, or national news. This, of course, makes sense when we aggregate the roughly 66,000 deaths a year due to overdoses in the United States. Those are staggering numbers in terms of human pain and suffering, not to mention the costs to taxpayers. We can impact both the pain and suffering and the financial burden with an investment to fund naloxone access.

Opioids are substances that act on specific receptors in the central nervous system to produce morphine-like effects. Naloxone, which is an opioid receptor antagonist, binds to opioid receptors and reverses or blocks the effects of other opioids. Giving naloxone reverses the effects of opioid drugs, restoring normal respiration. Importantly, there are no significant adverse effects if administered in the absence of an overdose.

There is ample literature that attests to the efficacy of naloxone and its positive effect in the outcome for patients with an acute opioid overdose. 

Increasing the availability of naloxone to police departments could help reverse overdoses on the street, as well as help with accidental poisonings if a child gains access to prescribed opioids. Also, it could enhance protection for our officers, both human and canine. Within the course of an arrest or response to a call involving these types of drugs, officers can become exposed to opioids in dangerous doses. As an example, we read about accidental exposure to fentanyl as it is absorbed through the skin. 

Implementing a program of co-prescription of naloxone for Medicare and Medicaid recipients who are prescribed more than 50 morphine milligram equivalents of opioid a day would also be a good investment to increase naloxone access. Recent studies demonstrate that patients who received a naloxone co-prescription had 47 percent fewer opioid-related emergency department visits per month and 63 percent fewer visits after one year, compared with patients who didn’t receive a naloxone co-prescription. 

For both federal health programs, the basic issue is one of resources. Many police departments around the country have expressed concern as to their ability to provide the training and supplies on a consistent basis when budgets must address a plethora of issues related to their many other responsibilities. Cost is also the issue for Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Going back to the original premise, minimal investment could provide significant tangible and intangible benefits, and Congress should fund grants to increase access to naloxone. The return on that investment would help our local communities and taxpayers and save lives.

Dr. Francisco R. Velazquez, a physician executive, is the former president and CEO of Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories and PAML Ventures.