CVS to Make Overdose Drug Naloxone Prescription-Free in Ohio

(Reuters)—CVS Health Corp said it would make naloxone, available without a prescription at all its pharmacies across Ohio, a state with one of the highest rates of overdose-related deaths.

Naloxone is already available without a prescription in CVS Health stores in more than a dozen states.

Drug overdoses increased 6.5% in 2014 from a year earlier, killing 47,055 people. The highest rates of death were in West Virginia, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio, according to report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December.