Making naloxone over-the-counter would be beneficial to society

Editor,

I am Autumn McMurtrey and I am a freshman at the University of Central Arkansas. I graduated from Gentry High School in May of this year and have lived in Gentry since I was 12. In my modern political economy course this semester, we were assigned to write an article about an economic issue and how we would solve it. To obtain a perfect score on the assignment, we were instructed to submit our letters to our local newspapers.

In 2016, there were about 64,000 drug overdoses in the United States. A rapid increase in the number of overdoses has caused the price of an emergency narcotic overdose medication, naloxone, to rise. Making naloxone more accessible to the public would allow more people to survive drug overdoses. Even if people are not taking narcotics illegally, those taking them by prescription could have it on-hand should there be an emergency.

To possibly decrease this catastrophic number of deaths in the U.S., all 50 states should allow naloxone to be sold over-the-counter and reduce the price of the drug. Roughly 42 out of the 50 states in the U.S. have either a Walgreens or a CVS that carries naloxone in the administration form of a nasal spray over-the-counter.

The current pricing of naloxone at a Walgreens in Arkansas is about $136 over-the-counter without insurance. If one has a prescription for an opioid, the price can be reduced to about $30 under the specific pharmacy's protocol, but those who are picking it up for a friend or family member to have on hand have to pay the full cash price of $136.

Making this lifesaving drug more readily available and reducing the price of the drug could cause people who do not have insurance to buy the drug, increasing sales and saving lives.

Autumn McMurtrey

Gentry

Editorial on 12/13/2017