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OSHA urges workplaces to stock naloxone, train workers, and keep kits easy to find.

Naloxone reverses opioid overdose, but someone must recognize the emergency and reach the kit in time.

Families, campuses, and workplaces need naloxone within reach—and someone knowing how to use it.

Rescue is the first step. Survivors also need evaluation, addiction treatment, and help staying in treatment.

Naloxone (Narcan) is a lifesaving nasal spray reversing potentially fatal opioid overdoses. It’s a scarily good drug because an overdose reversal is often the difference between life and death. In 1987, I highlighted Narcan in my book Wonder Drugs as a powerful, life-saving pharmaceutical antidote capable of rapidly reversing opioid overdoses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provisionally estimated 69,973 overdose deaths in 2025, substantially down from 81,313 in 2024. Naloxone has saved many lives, though changes in fentanyl drug supply, treatment, and prevention also contributed to the decline. It is a remarkable success in an area with too few of them. From September 2018 through March 2023, state opioid response programs reported distributing more than 8 million kits and more than 500,000 overdose reversals.

On September 24, 2026, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) advised employers nationwide to make naloxone accessible at work, to teach employees to recognize an overdose, to show them how to use the drug, and to place kits where people can find them. That’s good on you, OSHA. Note: OSHA’s naloxone fact sheet is advisory, not a workplace requirement.

We prepare for other medical emergencies. An automated external defibrillator hangs on employers’ walls because cardiac arrest doesn’t wait for an ambulance. Allergic people at risk of anaphylaxis carry their own epinephrine, even when school/workplaces keep some on hand.

Naloxone belongs at work, but the workplace kit cannot follow someone home. The family kit cannot help someone overdosing across the factory floor. CDC also advises people at increased risk of opioid overdose to carry the drug with them and keep another kit at home.

We Know Naloxone Works

Naloxone reverses breathing suppression caused by opioids. Someone recognizes a likely or possible overdose, accesses the medication, and administers the nasal spray. They also call 911 and continue to support breathing until emergency help arrives.

A 2025 review of community naloxone programs found high survival rates after reported administration: 98.3 percent continued their lives in programs serving people using drugs, 95.0 percent in programs serving families and community members, and 92.4........

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