When we see so many people with no other place to call home except a piece of sidewalk or a tent, we need to ask whether our leadership is choosing the appropriate solution to challenges at hand. In the case of homelessness in numbers such as we see in purportedly rich California cities, the answer is probably “no.”
When we routinely see drug injection needles discarded in sidewalks, parking lots, and our kids’ playground, we really need to think whether the current narrative of gentrification and housing shortage as the primary cause for homelessness makes sense.
We need to ask what role the drug industry, facilitated by political leaders, may play in such a scenario. The folks in question here are not the usual small-fry drug dealers, but the legitimate barons of an industry not shy about prices. Injection needles and other drug paraphernalia cost serious money, so does the increasingly ubiquitous naloxone.
Naloxone maker Kaleo has an injection treatment called Evzio that has a list price of $4,100. The company plans to release a generic version of Evzio with a retail price of $178 for a two pack this year. A two-pack of Narcan, a naloxone nasal spray, has a retail price of about $125. Generic naloxone costs about $40 per dose. FDA Clears the Way to Increase Access and Lower Cost of Life-saving Opioid Overdose Treatment Drug. CNBC. January 28, 2019.
The increase has cost the federal Medicare and Medicaid health programs more than $142 million since 2014, according the Homeland Security permanent subcommittee on investigations. Drug Company Raised Price of Lifesaving Opioid Overdose Antidote More than 600 Percent USA Today November 19, 2018.
The Just Vote No Blog recommends the article Homelessness: Housing is not the Problem, in the California Political News and Views of August 4, 2019, for more on this unfortunate homelessness situation.
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