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Resource officers are now the only ones to carry Narcan in Wake schools. Can this change?

Three years ago, Sophia Walsh was returning home after a fun weekend with friends river rafting in Boone.

On the drive back, she stopped at an acquaintance’s house to use the bathroom and get something to drink. An innocent act that had deadly consequences.

The water bottle she found in the refrigerator was poisoned with a dissolved fentanyl pill, according to investigators. An autopsy report found Walsh had 8.4 nanograms of fentanyl in her system, enough to kill four people.

Walsh overdosed on the drug. She was 24 years old.

TRAVIS LONG • TLONG@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
Samantha Brawley, a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, shows off the NARCAN nasal sprays and Fentanyl test strips that she carries while traveling in and around the Cherokee Indian Reservation where she offers support to people struggling with addiction. Ten percent of the tribe’s members received a substance-abuse diagnosis in 2012, the Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority reported in 2017.

Her family and friends remember the Apex High School and Appalachian State graduate as a passionate foodie, chef and nature lover, often photographing animals, plants and flowers.

“This individual did not have naloxone in their home and did not call 911,” said her mother, Barbara, in an interview. “It was not Sophia’s choice to die, and it was not her choice to ingest fentanyl.”

Since her daughter’s death, Barbara Walsh, has been raising awareness about fentanyl emergencies and working to increase the availability of the nasal spray drug naloxone, or Narcan, which reverses a drug overdose in two minutes. Her organization, Fentanyl Victims of North Carolina, highlights the many young people and their families affected by losses like her own.

Some leaders and advocates say the limited access to life-saving medication in schools should be expanded. Beyond school resource officers, advocates say, teachers, staff, school nurses and even students should have access to and be trained to administer the drug in case of an emergency.

“What is happening today is different than what happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago. It’s different than when I grew up,” Walsh said. “We were able to experiment and live. Today, that’s not always the case. The stigma some people have about (drugs) is from another era.”

In Wake County, 1,499 people died from drug emergencies from 2013 to 2023, according to the N.C. State Center for Health Statistics. Of that number, 867 — or 58% of the deaths — involved fentanyl. Statewide, more than 36,000 people died from drug misuse from 2000-22.

The synthetic opioid created in the 1960s is often prescribed for pain, and studies show it is 100 times more powerful than morphine. Many young people encounter fentanyl when experimenting with marijuana, Adderall, heroin, cocaine or other pills like ecstasy or Xanax.

NC State sophomore raises money to provide free Narcan to students

Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, and now she’s raising funds to provide free Narcan to students.

An NC State student is raising funds to help fight overdoses on campus.

Sophomore Alyssa Price said she lost two friends to overdoses, so she wanted to do something to help save others.

That’s why she is raising funds to provide Narcan – a medicine that reverses opioid overdose – free to students.

The university has increased resources after 14 students deaths, including two fatal overdoses, during the 2022-23 school year.

Price said this is one area where she felt she could do more.

“They created a bunch of preventative measures last year,” Price said. “But we did not have the part that was, ‘What if it happened?'”

She said she’s trying to help students be more prepared – and proactive – in the case of an emergency.

NC State prevention services does provide free Narcan kits to any campus community member – upon request. The university said it has distributed 744 kits throughout the past two years.

Price started a GofundMe to help raise money for her free Narcan initiative.

Read the full article and watch the video on the WRAL website.

CMS acknowledges teen drug use, will stock all public schools with Narcan

Narcan is the FDA-approved nasal form of naloxone for the emergency treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose. News & Observer file photo

Teens and drugs. The phrase has long gone together, but, nowadays, each puff passed, pill crushed and line sniffed threatens death, not a shaking finger.

In response to the bleak reality students face — where deadly opioids like fentanyl are easy to get and even harder to escape — the overdose reversal drug naloxone will soon be stocked in every Charlotte public school.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Board of Education unanimously approved the plan Tuesday, which was the first time the district openly addressed the topic of drug use among students.

Do youth anti-drug campaigns actually work?

Programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and in Charlotte use modern slang to communicate a timeless message: Drugs can kill.

Students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill now have access to free kits that revive someone suffering an opioid overdose and test strips to see what the drugs they are about to take contain.

These steps, which assume students are using drugs, are designed to save lives, but prompt the question: Will the tactics work for today’s students?

Riley Sullivan, the group’s cofounder and director, believes the kits will actually help reduce drug use on campus. He said the group has handed out about 900 naloxone kits and 500 fentanyl test strips this semester alone.

In Charlotte, a public awareness campaign called “Street Pills Kill” uses the slang of youth to convey the same message. The phrases are the new generation of “just say no” or “above the influence.”

“No cap, those pills are sus.”

Young people use the words “no cap” to say they are telling the truth or they aren’t lying. To use the word “cap” would mean someone is lying.

“Sus” is short for suspicious.

Another sign says: “you plus street pills equals … we don’t ship.”

“Ship” means you want two people to date or enter a romantic relationship.

The language is how kids speak nowadays, but will they listen to the kind of messaging?

Remember McGruff the Crime Dog or the “this is your brain on drugs” ad of a man cracking an egg on a skillet?

You might also remember other campaigns like “truth”and “DARE” to name a few.

Put naloxone in schools so it can save lives

Drug-overdose deaths among people 10–19 years old jumped 109% between 2019 and 2021 in the U.S. To save lives, the AMA supports widespread access to safe and affordable opioid overdose-reversal drugs.

“We are facing a national opioid crisis and it’s affecting our young people at an alarming rate. Just as students carry prescription inhalers to treat an asthma attack, we must destigmatize substance-use disorders and treat naloxone as a lifesaving tool,” said Bobby Mukkamala, MD, chair of the AMA Substance Use and Pain Care Task Force.

“Fortunately, an overdose tragedy can be reversed if quick action is taken with these safe and effective medications like naloxone,” Dr. Mukkamala said. “Allowing teachers and students to carry these medications is a commonsense decision and will no doubt result in young lives saved.”

Barbara Walsh Speaks to Wake County School Board on Naloxone in Schools

NARCAN PSA on TikTok

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Having NARCAN® Nasal Spray can mean the difference between life and loss. Are you Ready To Rescue?
♬ Promoted Music – Narcanofficial

Overdoses were finally on the decline in NC. The pandemic reignited the crisis.

Fatal overdoses in North Carolina had finally started to decline.

After steadily rising for years, deaths dropped by 7% in 2018, despite the growing prevalence of fentanyl, an opioid even more potent and deadly than heroine.

The state had aggressively invested in fighting the opioid crisis — it expanded access to evidence-based treatment, sent Narcan to at-risk areas and reduced medical dispensing of opioids.

Low overdose numbers in 2019 seemed to confirm the efforts were paying off.

People in the NC Department of Health and Human Services started believing it was possible to meet a goal they had set back in 2016: to cut the expected overdoses in 2024 by 20%.

“There was a lot of hope in those two years before the pandemic,” said Mary Beth Cox, a substance use epidemiologist DHHS.

Then COVID-19 hit.

“Who knows where we would have been if the pandemic hadn’t happened?” Cox said.

INCREASED ISOLATION, DISAPPEARING TREATMENT AND SUPPORT GROUPS

Loneliness and social isolation became more common. It became harder to send Narcan out into the community. Support groups and treatment centers transitioned online.

“You can do group therapy on the phone or in video, but it’s still not true connection,” said Ellen Stroud, who directs addiction and management operations for the state’s opioid response. “And that’s really a huge part of recovery.”

Disturbing data began emerging.

In the first year of the pandemic, fatal overdoses in the state shot up by 40%. In 2021, deaths increased by an additional 22%.

How to get Narcan, the drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, for free 24/7

It can save your life, and it’s free.

A vending machine stocked with free Narcan — a life-saving opioid reversal nasal spray — will now sit inside the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office, available for use 24/7.

The installment, tucked next to a Coca-Cola vending machine in the Detention Center’s lobby, comes after a 20% increase in fentanyl overdoses reported by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

Fentanyl — an opioid often laced in other drugs, like pain pills, or distributed on its own — is 100 times more potent than morphine, and even a small amount of it can be deadly.

As it becomes easily available — routinely popping up in the detention center, on streets and even in schools — Sheriff Garry McFadden hopes to make access to Narcan as easy as possible.

“We want to encourage all people, whether they personally use substances or not, to carry the life-saving drug,” wrote MCSO Public Information Officer Bradley Smith.

Naloxone, the fast-acting medicine in Narcan that reverses an opioid overdose, is considered safe to use even if drug use is suspected but later found to not be the case. Earlier this year, federal regulators took action to make 4 mg Narcan nasal spray available over-the-counter without a prescription for about $50.

In collaboration with Carolinas CARE Partnership Rx ACE (CCP), McFadden said offering the drug will be “a pivotal step in our efforts to combat the ongoing fentanyl crisis.”

Fentanyl overdose reversal spray ‘standing by’ for every public school in Charlotte

With the White House charting action in schools nationwide to curb teen drug use and deaths, Charlotte-Mecklenburg leaders plan to stock opioid overdose-reversal medicine in hallways.

While there have been no documented fatal overdoses in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, some data suggests drug use among students is on the rise. Fentanyl — a synthetic opioid — is pervasive in street-bought drugs, experts say.

Naloxone, an overdose-reversal medicine (commonly called Narcan), will be available in every school, pending CMS board approval, Raynard Washington, Mecklenburg health director, told The Charlotte Observer this week.

With the White House charting action in schools nationwide to curb teen drug use and deaths, Charlotte-Mecklenburg leaders plan to stock fentanyl overdose-reversal medicine in hallways.

We are standing by ready to start,” he said.

The Observer first reported on the district’s plan to allow naloxone in schools in September.