The Biden administration and its allies said Friday they want to make overdose-reversing drugs a ubiquitous part of American life, highlighting a plan to make naloxone available over the counter as House Republicans pressure the White House to stop fentanyl and address the overdose crisis.

Food and Drug Commissioner Robert Califf, speaking at the Whitman-Walker Health clinic in Washington, said he is pressing drugmakers to produce plans for making naloxone, which can revive a person suffering from opioid overdoses, available without a prescription.

Califf on Friday said regulatory approval will hinge on whether manufacturers can demonstrate that users can take the drug properly — without outside help — and “the good that can be done can exceed the harm.”.

More than 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021.

Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said expanding naloxone is a key priority for Mr.

Gupta said the country loses someone to an overdose roughly every five minutes — largely due to opioids, though methamphetamines are a big problem, too.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and his top lieutenants ticked through a list of efforts they’ve made over the past year to help people kick drug addiction and thrive.

Their overdose prevention strategy included harm-reduction strategies that let people use drugs in less dangerous conditions; funding for programs that thwart prescription-drug abuse; an expansion of the number of people who can prescribe and treat opioid use disorder with buprenorphine; and the establishment of an “office of recovery.”.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy late Thursday said tackling the synthetic opioid is on the GOP’s to-do list when it retakes the House majority in the new year.

McCarthy told reporters at a state dinner with France at the White House