discipline and vac face but which, as the ballet school's been factor likes to say: lifts the human spirit. lucia newman, havan a. . thanks for joining us on "america tonight." i'm joie chen. we have heard so much about the epidemic that hit america's streets, heroin. communities, even places you wouldn't expect are being forced now to battle it, but now baltimore is testing out a radical plan to combat heroin addiction.

the city wants to open a 24-hour emergency addiction clinic and increase services to prisoners and to those in recovery. a big obstacle blocks the way. you know what it is. money. because the price of a life-saving drug has skyrocketed. here's "america tonight's" adam may. >> these are what we give to clients in case somebody overdoses on heroin. this will save their lives. >> inside the cramped quarters of a small bus in baltimore, they're handing out a miracle drug. david, who didn't want us to use his last name, is volunteering his time preparing clean needles for drug addicts who come in off the street. it's here where david hands out noloxin, the drug that can reverse a heroin overdose. >> in a matter of seconds, the person will come out of it right away. >> it's part of a new initiative by the city of baltimore to train every resident to use

noloxin. the health commissioner said the need is that urge the. >> this is the equivalent of having a defib later for heart attacks. they're in airports and office buildings. everyone should have the ability to save someone's life. >> you're saying everyone. >> i'm saying everyone. >> baltimore has been called the heroin capital of the nation. almost every day someone here dies of a drug or alcohol-related overdose. how would you describe the number of overdoses on the streets of baltimore right now? >> it's tragic. our overdose rates have reached epidemic proportions. last year 303 people died from drug and alcohol overdoses. >> that's almost one a day. >> that's almost one a day just in our city. when we look at the increase, there's been a 23% increase over the previous year. i mean, if we had any other disease that's causing this many

deaths, you can imagine if we said ebola is causing 303 death, we would mobilize every resource we can to address that. >> david was one of the baltimore's addicted. homeless for years, he was lucky, helped off the streets by a good samaritan. he's now in long-term recovery. he blames the recent spike in overdose deaths on the powerful synthetic opiod fentanyl. >> when it came in mixed with heroin, it's a deadly cocktail. people that have been drug addicts for years and think they can handle it, they just can't. it's about 12 times stronger than morphine. so mixed in going straight into the bloodstream, it can take the most seasoned heroin addict out. >> while noloxin has been called a miracle drug, it could quickly be out of reach for people like david who want to save lives. that's because the cost has more

than doubled in just the past year, leading to huge profits for the pharmaceutical companies who made the drug. companies like ampistar. the price increase has caught the attention of capitol hill. vermont senator bernie sanders and maryland representative elijah cummings wrote this letter to the ceo of the pharmaceutical company earlier this year. the rapid increase in the cost of this life-saving medication? fl such a short time frame is a significant public health concern. >> congressman elijah cummings. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> cummings has now written a second letter to the governor of maryland, lieutenant-governor, and attorney general urging them to negotiate rebates like a handful of other states have done. >> the point of my letter is simple. if new york and other states are getting lower prices for this drug, the very same drug, then maryland should get it, too.

we should not let our citizens be overcharged, and we should let the company jeopardize the private steps we have taken to address the crisis. >> what response have been gotten from them so far? >> i'll be meeting with their lawyer this evening at 6:15, with their lawyer. >> what do you want to ask them? >> we've already asked them why is it that they went up on their price $19 to $41 in a matter of six or seven months. they gave us some excuses about the costs going up and production. then we asked for documents to back it up. they could not show us one single document. >> what should the cost be? >> this is a life-saving medication. this is a medication that can be produced with pennies. it should be free. it should be our societal obligation to provide this life-saving medication. >> david has now been in

recovery going on 15 years. he says while noloxin can bring a person back to life, it can't bring back a livelihood and not a cure for disease. >> you have to look at it as a disease. person. they're suffering from a disease that robs them of their life. >> how are you doing now? >> my life is good. i mean, no matter what i get in my life, to thank the people that helped me get here and get back and hopefully help somebody else. that's the biggest reward in and of itself. >> a reward he hopes to share with others, but concerned big pharma sees profits, not people. adam may, al jazeera, baltimore. next up here, the worst of two evils. we consider the options for heroin addicts in new hampshire when the only shot at finding a cure is behind bars. and later a surprising

legacy. the memorials to love, loss and why survivors want their final words to speak the truth.

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heroin by the numbers now. use of the drug by young people is more than doubled in the last decade, and overdoses quadrupled. what can save lives? well perhaps facing the truth about drug death. in a striking grassroots movement signs that families want the final legacy of their

children, however painful, to live on and to make a difference. >> my name is margaret, and i lost my daughter sue to heroin on august 6, 2013. the police came to the house, and i just thought that they were, you know -- she was in jail again. they asked if i was alone. i said, no, my husband is back in the shop. we can go back there if you need to go back there. they said, let's go back there. and then they told us that she had died. it was just such a shock even though you knew it was going to happen. it was a shock that it actually did. i included the heroin in her obituary because she wanted me to. she said i know i'm not going to live to be very old, maybe 40 at the most or 35. she says, keep think, and if i die, i want this in my obituary. she says i was a perfect daughter and my parents never

knew i was using or drinking for at least the first five years from age 12 to 17. then only suspected it until the last ten years of my life when i couldn't hide it anymore. during the last ten years, i never knew from one day to the next where i was going to be. i ate out of garbage cans and i begged and stole. you will become a liar and thief. next you will lose your family, your real friends, and eventually your life. the light of my life, my daughter, was taken away. even then i could not quit. i have quit now, but i am dead. don't wait as long as i did. give yourself life another chance. she wanted other people to get help, because she couldn't. she wanted her daughter back, and she couldn't overcome her addiction long enough to get her daughter back. >> my name is kathleen and i lost my son logan to a heroin

overdose on march 27, 2015. i got the phone call that logan had overdosed, and that call came from his dad who was told by neighbors who saw police and ambulance outside the house. i left here and drove to the hospital in peeksville, which was, i don't know, maybe a 15-minute drive. he was still downstairs in the e.r., and he went up to the icu shortly after that and was there for five days before they determined that there was no way he could recover. i included heroin in the obituary because it never occurred to me to do anything other than that. logan fought substance abuse for eight years of his short life. he experienced many periods of success during which he was fully himself, a kind, intuitive, strong and generous young man. ultimately he lost his battle

and is now another heart-breaking reminder of the heroin epidemic in this country. it's incredibly prevalent even in the small town, six kids including logan have overdosed in the last two years. that's one every four months. logan knew them all. >> my name is peggy, and i lost my son adam richard to heroin on may 30, 2015. we got a call around 6:15 in the morning. the e.r. doctor told us that adam had been brought in by ambulance several hours earlier of a suspected drug overdose. by 3:00 that afternoon he was pronounced dead. i included heroin in the obituary because there is a huge heroin epidemic in the northern kentucky area as well as across the nation. our charismatic and beautiful

brother and son died saturday from a cardiac arrest caused by a drug overdose. with adam seemingly endless positive traits, he had the potential to be anything, but drugs began to creep into his life while he was in high school. the worry that we have felt watching adam struggle has been replaced by a deep feeling of loss that now exists knowing we will never see his smiling face again. i wanted to let people know that it was a drug overdose. was i proud of it? no. we need to stop burying these young people. >> sue to support her habit she robbed and broken into houses. we'd give her money, which was stupid because we knew it was going for drugs. she stole from us many times, either boyfriends helped her, friends helped her and prostitution. that's the only way she could get money. when she died she was with someone and he found her in the bathroom.

they just have to get it any way they can. >> logan would take money or go through my medicine cabinet. i would continually confront him on it. i preferred not to have him around where i had to lock up the change jar and hide my purse. it's exhausting to deal with that. unfortunately, what most families do is slowly accommodate the addict, and before you know it, you're living as a prisoner to this person's addiction. >> i never, never in my dair ever thought that adam would do heroin. stick a needle in your arm? he didn't like the sight of needles. adam was working for his uncle, and a co-worker found him at lunchtime using. i believe the needle was still in his arm in his car. his uncle let him go right then. i think that probably for adam was the lowest of the low. >> after losing sue to heroin, i've learned that no matter how

hard you try, you cannot make your child go the straight and narrow. they have to want to. after their first high, they can never get that high again, but they are always trying. by then they're so addicted to it they just can't leave it. it's a really helpless situation, and you hope that other kids will hear the stories and learn and not want to go that way because the parents really can't do anything. >> what i miss most about her is her smile and her laugh. >> what i miss most about my son is the potential that he didn't get to enjoy of having a fulfilled, happy, comfortable life. >> i can still hear that laugh, and i know he's looking down on us. that brings me comfort. >> legacy of addiction.

that is "america tonight." please come back. we'll have more of "america tonight" tomorrow. >> al jazeera america, proud of telling historic and personal stories of the lgtb community. >> how did stonewall transform the gay rights movement? >> it gave us courage to go on. >> the gay community in particular was being portrayed incredibly negatively. >> a lot of people's lives have been put on hold. >> we're prepared for the fight that we know we're facing. >> twenty-one people were killed, nearly all of them transgender women of color. >> we have a reason to wake up and live just like everybody else. >> it's easy to demonize something that you don't know. >> they forget that you're human

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a new dawn in myanmar as the country's first elected civilian government takes charge hello from doha. this is the world news from al jazeera. also ahead brazil's political crisis deepens. dilma rousseff's partner walks out of parliament. hundreds remain outside of parliament did despite two deadlines to leave. the mother of an italian student murder in egyptis