I encourage nurses to request that any prescription for opioid analgesics be accompanied by a prescription for a naloxone autoinjection system sold under the trade name Evzio ("Naloxone Now Available for Emergency Home Use," Drug Watch, August 2014).

Many overdose victims do not survive until first responders can arrive and administer this lifesaving medication. Now that Evzio and intranasal naloxone rescue kits are available for home use, nurses have the opportunity to support a national initiative to pair naloxone and opioid prescriptions. Greater access to naloxone is supported by the American Medical Association, which issued a press release on April 7 in favor of the Food and Drug Administration's decision to approve this drug.

Every patient, whether opioid naive or dependent, has the right to ethical treatment. Nurses now have the opportunity to effect a dramatic change in the mortality rates associated with opioid overdose.

Sherry Spencer, RN

Wilmington, NC