California offers generic Narcan twin-pack for $24 to reverse opioid overdoses
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - For $24, Californians can now get a twin-pack of generic Narcan, the opioid overdose-reversal drug.
What we know
The nasal spray is now available on the CalRx website. The generic drug naloxone can reverse overdose by blocking the effects of opioids. This generic version now available is about half the standard price, Governor Gavin Newsom's office announced on Monday.
Officials said a recent study found use of the generic version of the drug has saved the state $6 million.
"Life-saving medications shouldn't come with a life-altering price tag. CalRx is about making essential drugs like naloxone affordable and accessible for all — not the privileged few," a statement from Newsom's office read. "California is using our market power as the 5th largest economy in the world to disrupt a billion-dollar industry to save lives…and we're just getting started."
According to the news release, California residents and businesses can go to the CalRx website and purchase the drug. Taxes and shipping costs are separate. But officials say this is the most cost-competitive option currently available.
CalRx-branded naloxone was first introduced in May 2024. Newsom in 2023 introduced his Master Plan for Tackling the Fentanyl and Opioid Crisis Making naloxone more accessible and reducing and preventing overdoses were major components of that plan.
By the numbers
Newsom's office said in data through June 2024, the state had, for the first time, shown a decline in synthetic opioid-related overdoses. The decline reversed the trend that had been seen from 2018 through June 2023, officials said.
Click here for more information.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Despite pay problems and staff turnover, New Orleans EMS takes each call in stride
New Orleans EMT Daniel Rokos, left, and paramedic Ivy Molloy reset their ambulance after taking an elderly man with chest pain to the hospital on May 2, 2025. (Halle Parker/Verite News) NEW ORLEANS – It was mid-morning when Ivy Molloy and Daniel Rokos answered the first call of their shift. The details were sparse. Shots fired. Walmart parking lot on Tchoupitoulas Street. Officer down. The ambulance sped to the scene as a line of flashing blue lights and sirens grew behind them. As they searched for their patient, Rokos slowly steering the ambulance through the parking lot, a shopper leaving the store yelled at the pair to get out of the way. Finally, they found her, lying on the asphalt on a nearby street, wearing a shredded New Orleans Police Department uniform and crying out in pain. The emergency responders strapped the woman onto a gurney. Inside the ambulance, Molloy helped lift and pull the gurney in place as Rokos hooked the patient up to health monitors. As the patient calmed down, she told Molloy what happened. While working in the Walmart parking lot, she had revived someone overdosing in the driver's seat of his car with Narcan, only for the man to then hit the gas pedal, pulling her along. To try to free herself, she had shot him in the chest. He then crashed into a pickup truck, crushing her between the cars, before driving off again. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Molloy was unfazed, calmly taking blood pressure readings, giving medicine and helping her patient relax. 'Bad things happen to good people all the time. You know that, you see it every single day,' Molloy told her patient, who shuddered with sobs. The paramedic walked the officer through a breathing exercise. Breathe in, hold it for two seconds. Let everything out. Repeat. 'Slowing down your breathing is going help your nauseousness,' Molloy said. 'It's going to help you feel more in control, and that's half the battle right there: feeling out of control.' The scene, which took place in May, was emblematic of some of the city's pressing social issues — policing, the opioid epidemic. For Molloy and Rokos, it was just another day with New Orleans Emergency Medical Services. Molloy and Rokos are two of the 150 employees working at New Orleans EMS to provide emergency health care and transport to the public. And despite witnessing some of the most traumatic events in the city, they both say it's a better career than their old office jobs. Five years ago, Molloy was about to go to school to become a social worker. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, she heard a news story about a national shortage of EMTs and paramedics. So, she changed her plans. 'The first time I got on an ambulance, I just felt like this is where I was supposed to be,' she said. After more than a decade as an EMT, Rokos has watched cars block his blaring ambulance; he has a scar on his arm from where a patient bit him; passersby have yelled and honked at him as he treated someone in cardiac arrest. Yet he stays because he knows he's doing important work. 'You don't often feel the need for an ambulance in your life. Until you have that need … it just doesn't really occur to you,' Rokos said. As the city's EMTs face daily challenges on the job, New Orleans EMS faces an even bigger challenge: holding on to those workers. Molloy and Rokos say it's demoralizing to watch dozens of colleagues leave the agency, taking years of experience and knowledge with them, to take higher-paying, lower-stress jobs or leave the field altogether. Slowing turnover remains the agency's top priority, said Alexis Paquette, EMS's public information officer. Since 2019, staffing at EMS is down by nearly 14%, and the city has slashed the agency's personnel budget in recent years as it struggles to fill jobs. Paquette said the turnover has two main causes: staffers don't make enough money and don't see EMS as long-term career path. For years, the agency has said it needs room in its budget to pay paramedics and EMTs competitively. Although EMS staff have received incremental citywide raises under LaToya Cantrell's administration, the agency hasn't been allocated department-specific money for such pay raises. Currently, a paramedic like Molloy earns about $27 per hour, while an EMT like Rokos earns about $20. 'The people that answer the phone when you call 911 make more money than I do,' said Rokos, who has more than a decade of experience as an EMT. Molloy says she can afford to live on what she makes because of her lifestyle choices. 'I tell people I make a living wage because I'm an independent person who drives a 20-year-old truck, and I have no interest in being married, having children or owning a home,' she said. New Orleans EMS faces a high call volume, currently receiving a new call every 10 minutes on average. For the last two years, the department received more than 70,000 calls, according to data shared by New Orleans EMS. The department's pay and budget don't match the workload, Paquette said, exacerbating the problem. It also affects how quickly New Orleans residents receive help. In recent years, the agency has also faced criticism over lengthy wait times. Paquette said staffers often leave to work for private emergency service providers, companies that can pay more and offer more downtime. Others are working EMS jobs while studying nursing or medicine. Pay bumps could help staying at the agency feel more sustainable, she said. ' A lot of our staff are young people who don't have families or don't have much responsibility outside of working here,' Paquette said. Though the origins of emergency medical services have been traced back to Napoleon's time, the EMS system as we know it only evolved after federal reforms in the 1970s, making it a relatively young health care profession. The low pay can help amplify a perception in the health care industry that EMS is a temporary job, not a career, Molloy and Rokos noted. 'The more expensive things get, the harder it becomes,' Molloy said. 'We're hemorrhaging people left and right.' As summer heats up, Molloy and Rokos expect to stay busy, responding to more injuries related to doing outdoor activities, stormy weather and extreme heat. Meanwhile, the agency will be preparing yet another ask to the Mayor's Office and the City Council for higher wages. Paquette said she hoped to see residents show up to the city budget meetings that typically occur in August and September to help bolster support for raises. This year, the City Council approved fee increases to help EMS bring in more revenue, but it's unclear how that might translate to pay raises. One legislative effort to put state money toward paying EMS workers has failed three times, most recently during this session. Had it passed, local EMS workers would have received $600 a month each in extra pay. Back in the ambulance, Rokos drove as Malloy attended to their patient. 'I just want to know if they got him,' the officer said, crying again. 'I just can't believe he did that.' Molloy reassured her, promising to find the answer when they reached University Medical Center. Within 10 minutes, the ambulance arrived. The officer, surrounded by a team of trauma doctors, was whisked away in the gurney with Molloy at her side. Not far behind, doctors swarmed around another gurney. This one carried the man shot by the officer, an automated CPR machine pounding on his chest. NOPD later said the driver died at the hospital, while the officer, who was working an off-duty security shift at the time, was in stable condition. As Molloy handled the patient paperwork with the hospital, Rokos quietly started setting up for the next call. In the downtime, he helped clean out blood from the other ambulance on the scene. 'This is pretty run of the mill,' Molloy said, dropping down on a seat in the back of their ambulance after the patient transfer followed by Rokos. 'We've seen that and worse, 100 times over,' Rokos added. Then, it was onto the next call: this time, an elderly man with chest pain who had taken a fall. After pulling up to a small home on the West Bank, the pair jumped out and grabbed the gurney — ready to do it all over again. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE This article first appeared on Verite News New Orleans and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Epoch Times
18 hours ago
- Epoch Times
Nearly 4 Million BowFlex Dumbbells Recalled Nationwide: CPSC
Wisconsin-based Johnson Health Tech Trading Inc. is recalling around 3.84 million units of dumbbells due to a risk that 'weight plates can dislodge from the handle during use, posing an impact hazard,' the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said in a June 5 The recall applies to BowFlex-branded Model 552 (52.5 lb.) and Model 1090 (90 lb.) adjustable dumbbells. Bowflex, formerly Nautilus Inc., filed for bankruptcy in March 2024. Johnson Health Tech
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Yahoo
Preliminary data shows opioid deaths dropping big in Michigan
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says its latest data shows opioid deaths continue to drop across the state. Nitrous oxide abuse up more than 500% in Michigan Provisional data from MDHHS says overdose deaths likely dropped by 34% from 2023 to 2024 — approximately 1,000 fewer lives lost. The agency called it 'continued progress' thanks to investments to combat oversdoses, both financially and in effort. Since 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office has worked to secure more than from several drug manufacturers and retailers, providing funds for state treatment, recovery and prevention programs. 'The progress we are seeing in combatting the opioid epidemic proves what is possible when real investments are made in treatment and prevention,' Nessel . 'My office will continue working to hold those responsible for this crisis accountable to ensure the health and well-being of residents are put ahead of corporate greed.' 'You can do it': Woman who beat addiction aims to inspire others According to MDHHS, more than 1.3 million naloxone kits have been purchased and distributed, and nearly 34,000 have reportedly been used to reverse overdoses and save lives. Michigan's , which is powered primarily by opioids, has steadily climbed from 2000 to 2021. The MDHHS notes a rise in opioid prescriptions starting in 2000, a rise in heroin use starting in 2010 and the emergence of fentanyl in 2013. In Michigan, overdose deaths took a sharp rise in 2013, from 1,300 to 1,535. By 2017, the number was up to 2,686. Numbers dropped before another surge sparked in 2019, going from 2,354 to 3,096 in 2021. Since then, deaths have trended down. The state recorded 2,998 in 2022 and 2,931. The preliminary data recorded just 1,045 deaths from January through June of 2024, on track for roughly 2,100 for the year. Sign up for the News 8 daily newsletter Lauren Rousseau, the president of the Northwest Wayne County Chapter of Face Addiction Now, says there is still a lot of work to do. 'White overdose deaths have declined significantly, due in part to the increased accessibility of Narcan, nonfatal overdoses remain high,' Rousseau said in a statement. 'Sustained funding, community engagement and a continued focus on reducing stigma are essential to turning the tide on the opioid crisis for good.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.