Naloxone Can Reverse Drug Overdoses

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Naloxone is a life-saving opioid reversal medication that can help with heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioid medication overdoses. Known as an opioid antagonist, naloxone medication will attach itself to opioid receptors and reverse and block the effects of other opioids. Naloxone can quickly restore normal breathing to a person if their breathing has slowed or stopped because of an opioid overdose within 2–3 minutes.

Drug Overdose Deaths: Facts and Figures | National Institute on Drug Abuse
See facts and figures on overdose deaths as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NIDA.nih.gov

I couldn’t sleep, so I lay in bed thinking when my husband, who was up too, said, “Hey, listen to this?”

It was a BBC program about Naloxone. A drug that could reverse an overdose of heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids. This is amazing, cheap, and should be available to everyone like over-the-counter painkillers.

BBC Audio | Business Daily | Follow the Money: The antidote economy
An opioid overdose antidote costs a few dollars. Why doesn’t it always reach the patient?www.bbc.com

Naloxone was first made in 1961 and became widely available to the general public without a prescription in September 2023, following full over-the-counter approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Why did the USDA sit on this drug that could save lives and didn’t make it accessible to the entire public before? It took them more than sixty years to release it without a prescription, with all of the drug crisis in communities across the US.

Timeline of Naloxone Availability

• 1961 Synthesis and Patent: Scientists first made and patented Naloxone.

• 1971 Medical Approval: The FDA approved Naloxone to reverse opioid overdoses, but restricted its use strictly to hospitals, paramedics, and emergency doctors.

• 1996 Community Programs: Grassroots public health groups (like the Chicago Recovery Alliance) started the first underground community distribution programs for laypeople.

• 2010s State Laws: Individual states began passing laws allowing pharmacies to dispense Naloxone via standing prescriptions or pharmacist protocols without a direct doctor’s note for individuals.

• September 2023 Retail Launch: Narcan (the brand-name nasal spray form of Naloxone) hit regular store shelves and online retailers for direct, over-the-counter public purchase.

Between 1961 and 2023, well over 1.2 million Americans died from drug overdoses, with comprehensive and consistent tracking by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showing approximately 932,400 of those deaths occurring strictly in the 24 years from 1999 to 2023 alone. Systematic annual data before 1968 is sparse, but historical compilations document roughly 1.1 million deaths occurring between 1968 and 2020, augmented by over 217,700 additional deaths in the final three years (2021–2023), Google.

Damn, could more than one million lives be saved if Naloxone were easy to access? Children lose parents. Parents lost children. Sisters lost brothers. Brothers lost sisters. Families lost their loved ones. Friends lost friends too. Someone lost a loved one. Our world lost something too.

Around 70,000 people died in the 12 months ending December 31, 2025, at a rate of 192 deaths per day. That is 20.5 deaths per 100,000 US residents, using the population at the midpoint of that period (341,784,857 on July 1, 2025)

United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time - Wikipedia
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides data on drug overdose death rates and…en.wikipedia.org

How much does Naloxone cost to make?

The physical medication inside a dose of Naloxone is incredibly cheap to manufacture, costing approximately 5 cents ($0.05) to produce.

However, the complete cost to make a ready-to-use product varies dramatically depending on the delivery mechanism, materials, and automated packaging.

Manufacturing Cost Breakdown

While the active pharmaceutical ingredient is nearly free, the final production cost depends on how the drug is packaged:

• Injectable Naloxone (~$3.00 to $10.00): Liquid Naloxone filled into standard medical vials or pre-filled syringes requires very simple machinery and generic packaging.

• Nasal Spray / Narcan (~$20.00): According to the North Carolina Opioid Settlement cost analysis, the hardware and assembly for a two-dose nasal spray kit includes:

• $8.60 for parts and materials (including specialized plastic devices from global suppliers).

• $10.00 for high-precision sterile liquid filling and device assembly.

• $1.40 for final box packaging and instructions Google

At this cost, more than a million lives could be saved. Don’t you agree? It’s cheap to make and manufacture. In poorer countries that lack the proper life-saving resources, this should work for them.

The vast majority are sold by Hospira, which has increased the price by 129% since 2012 (see table). Only Amphastar manufactures 1-mg-per-milliliter injections, the dose used off-label as a nasal spray, which currently costs $39.60 after a 95% increase in September 2014. Newer, easier-to-use formulations are even more expensive. Narcan costs $150 for two nasal-spray doses. A two-dose Evzio package was priced at $690 in 2014 but is $4,500 today, a price increase of more than 500% in just over 2 years.

The New England Journal of Medicine | Research & Review Articles on Disease & Clinical Practice
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research and…www.nejm.org

I read a lot, and have witnessed my country’s drug problems too. This is the first time I have heard of this drug, and I know many of you will agree with me. If this life-saving antidote were available...

Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose on April 21, 2016. He was 57 years old. The musician was found unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park estate and recording studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

Could Naloxone have saved Prince? He could afford it. How many lives could have been saved if Naloxone were easy to access? What a horrible world we live in when saving a human life depends on your race, status, wealth, and who you know.

Michael Jackson, too, died of a drug overdose. Could Naloxone have saved him?

Sorry about my language, but who decides who lives and who dies because of a cheaply manufactured life-saving drug? This hurts!

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.