Earlier this week, Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) submitted a request to the California Department of Public Health for the expansion of Food and Drug Administration-approved opioid overdose reversal agents. The request came about a year after the agency gave over-the-counter approval for the first and only time to an overdose-reversal drug: naloxone [Narcan] nasal spray.
“With different devices, some of them are easier to use. Some come with instructions, some of them are auto injectors. They’re a little bit more expensive, but it makes it easier for labor,” Jeremy Sharp, SSDP chapter development director, said. “Having those options available for people, it just means that these institutions and students… can have greater access.”
SSDP, a grassroots nonprofit organization, is the largest youth-led network in the country with 12 active chapters in California devoted to ending what it calls the “disastrous war on drugs.”
Students across the country are often the frontline of campaigns to allow access to these medications via vending machines, health centers and student trainings at their universities.
“Through policy, we’re trying to make systemic change,” Sharp said. “And you’ll notice things like drug use affects everything: housing, employment, incarceration, food stamps.”
USC has also made efforts to increase access to these life-saving medications.
Ben Feldman, the current president of Sigma Chi Fraternity, Alpha Upsilon Chapter does biannual Narcan training with his chapter members. The fraternity collaborates with Team Awareness Combating Overdose (TACO), an organization with more than 200 chapters.
“Our chapter operates under the same model that TACO does,” Feldman said. “When you’re dealing with potentially addictive drugs, the idea that ignorance is bliss is completely wrong. Knowledge is actually bliss. Having the training that we use comforts me a lot, because we know that every member has the training and the knowledge to be able to administer Narcan.”
In the event of an overdose, Narcan can mitigate the impacts of an overdose, potentially saving someone’s life.
Terry Church, assistant professor of Regulatory and Quality Sciences at USC, said that people who use opioids may experience a reduced ability to breathe in oxygen, causing their bodies to go into what he described as a “brief hibernation.”
“This drug [Narcan] actually reverses that effect,” he said. “And it can help individuals who are overdosing to be able to breathe until help arrives.”
Church said that individuals administering Narcan should make sure the person experiencing an overdose is laying down with nothing in their mouth to ensure cleared airways.
As for potential risks or side effects of using Narcan, Church said they are limited.
“The biggest one that you may have is a headache afterwards,” he said. “Think of the worst allergies you’ve ever had and your nose just constantly runs.”
There are two vending machines on USC’s campus that have Narcan available: one is in the Village, and the other is in the Royal Parking Structure.
SSDP’s push for different opioid reversal medications to be made available to teachers and students is based on the increasing rate of drug overdoses in 10-19 year olds. In their letter to CDPH, the organization said “a one-size-fits-all approach may not be sufficient” to address the opioid crisis’ impact on students.