SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Californians can now buy opioid reversal drugs directly from the state under a program aimed at making the life-saving medication less expensive and more accessible, officials said Monday.
The state began selling its own generic version of Narcan last year for $24 per twin-pack to businesses and local governments, and will now also sell to individual consumers online. A box containing two doses of naloxone nasal spray costs between $45 and $70 from regular pharmacies and online marketplaces.
Opioid overdose deaths, which are caused by heroin, fentanyl and oxycodone, have increased dramatically in California and across the country in recent years, reaching 7,847 in the state in 2023. But California officials say they have started to see a decline in these deaths.
The move is part of a broader push by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to try to force drug companies to lower their prices by offering cheaper, competing versions of medication under the state's CalRx label.
“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,” Newsom said in a statement.
Naloxone, which can reverse overdoses of opioids, has been available in the U.S. without a prescription since March of 2023, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Narcan, a nasal spray brand produced by the Maryland-based pharmaceutical company Emergent BioSolutions.
California is also working on a plan to make insulin more affordable for residents. The state has an agreement with the nonprofit Civica to produce CalRx-branded insulin used to treat diabetes.
FILE California Gov. Gavin Newsom attends the 2025 Economic Forecast and Industry Outlook convening on Feb. 26, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
CHICAGO (AP) — John Hauldren has been a Chicago Cubs fan all his life. During the team’s last homestand, he got a text message from a high school friend. It was the first text he had received from him.
Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong had just used “Front to Back” — a song from Hauldren's electronic music group, Levity — as his walkup music in a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“I was like ‘What? Like, no way,'" Hauldren recalled. “I, like, had to do my research for myself.”
Sure enough, it was true. Hauldren confirmed the authenticity of the moment through a tangential connection to the emerging star.
Crow-Armstrong's girlfriend has a cousin who is friends with the girlfriend of PJ Carberry, another member of Levity.
“My girlfriend, her cousin and her sister actually all just went to go watch them in Arizona,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I had already been talking about making one of their songs my walkout, so I just decided to do it.”
Crow-Armstrong, a 23-year-old Southern California native, also uses Larry June's “Still Boomin” for his walkup song. He said he isn't a big fan of dubstep — the subset of electronic dance music where Levity lands most of the time — but he likes Levity's stuff.
Music is a prominent part of Crow-Armstrong's daily routine, and he enjoys the process of picking a walkup song.
“Music’s the best thing ever. I mean, literally, universally, it is the best thing ever,” he said.
Hauldren, 26, has a similar opinion when it comes to Crow-Armstrong’s baseball team. Hauldren is the youngest of four siblings in a White Sox family from suburban Chicago. He grew up going to White Sox games on the South Side.
But he was always a Cubs fan.
“It just kind of stuck, and a lot of my friends were Cubs fans, too,” he said. “So thankfully my dad would suck up his pride or whatever you would call it and take me to a Cubs game every once in a while.”
The beginning of Levity goes back to Hauldren and Carberry connecting at the University of Iowa in 2017. They met Josh Tarum through mutual friends, and they started making music together.
Hauldren and Carberry live in Chicago, and Hauldren worked on much of “Front to Back” at their place in Bucktown — not far from Wrigley Field.
“My window is the skyline of Chicago and stuff,” Hauldren said. “And so seeing that song get played at Wrigley Field when it was made watching the skyline of Chicago and being very close to Wrigley Field was just insane to me.”
After Crow-Armstrong used the song as his walkup music, Hauldren posted on Instagram about how much it meant to him. He tagged Crow-Armstrong in the post, and the two talked. They are hoping to meet up at some point.
Levity played Coachella this year, and it is going to Lollapalooza this summer in Chicago's Grant Park. But Hauldren said his connection with Crow-Armstrong ranks right up there when it comes to his most memorable experiences with his group.
“I’m just very happy that if someone ever plays a walkout song for us, that it was the Cubs,” he said. “Like I couldn’t be happier that, you know, of all the teams that it was my team.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Chicago Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong watches his sacrifice bunt that scored Darby Swanson during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Friday, April 25, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
Chicago Cubs' Pete Crow-Armstrong hits a one-run double during the second inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies in Chicago, Sunday, April 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
