CLEVELAND — As Ohio continues to see some of its highest numbers when it comes to yearly overdose deaths, experts told News 5 they are also seeing encouraging numbers when it comes to combating this opioid crisis.
Data from the Ohio Department of Health shows that the state increased the amount of naloxone it handed out by 42% between 2022 and 2023, amounting to nearly 300,000 kits.
That increase, state leaders said, has helped fuel an 11% jump in known overdose reversals during the same stretch, totaling more than 20,000 reversals in 2023.
It’s almost a subconscious habit for Dean Roff: storing the overdose reversal drug naloxone in his car like it were jumper cables.
"You could save a life and not even know it," he said.
Roff runs the nonprofit outreach Homeless Hookup CLE and sees firsthand how naloxone, sometimes known under the brand name Narcan, can give people another chance.
"Guy goes away from his tent to use the bathroom and he comes back and his friend is on the ground and is gray and is foaming at the mouth," Roff recalled. "He uses the narcan and his friend is alive today because of something I did. How much more motivation do you need?"
Late last year, Gov. Mike DeWine went as far as ordering naloxone be stored at rest areas for free across the state.
News 5 checked several rest stops in Northeast Ohio and spotted boxes ready to be used and others already helping someone out.
For Dennis Cauchon, who oversees the statewide nonprofit Harm Reduction Ohio, the falling cost of naloxone has made it easier to put it just about everywhere. Cauchon reflected on the price for naloxone being $100 a kit three years ago. Today, he said they pay about $40 per kit.
This comes on top of loosening regulations that once required it to be a prescribed drug. Now, it can be bought over the counter.
"It's quite remarkable," he said. "I feel like I'm giving out apple pie. When I first started in 2018, we were giving it out illegally without permission."
Cauchon said going forward, the key will be even more of a concerted effort to get it into the right hands on the ground.
"Right now, we're at a point where we're giving out enough naloxone kits," Cauchon said. "So the next stage is the harder stage. It's targeting it to where it needs to be in a more precise manner."
For Roff, that precision needs to come with the next generation and those who might not realize what exactly is in what they’re taking.
"It’s not a little experiment anymore," Roff said. "You’re not experimenting with drugs; you’re experimenting with your life."
