Opinion: With laws on the cusp of changing, the exact resources that can be provided are in flux.
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As the opioid crisis continues to rage across the U.S., organizations are trying to find effective harm prevention methods more than ever. In 2021, there were 67,325 deaths recorded that were due to fentanyl, a 26% increase from 2020. Fentanyl is a strong synthetic opioid, 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin. Originally used as a painkiller in a medical context, it has been introduced on the street drug level. Dealers often cut other drugs with fentanyl to reduce their expenses and make higher profits. Users don’t have any idea if this has happened until they ingest the laced drugs. This has led to countless overdoses and many preventable deaths.

A game changer is the nasal spray naloxone, described as “an opioid antagonist” that “attaches to opioid receptors and reverses and blocks the effects of other opioids.” Naloxone can be administered to someone in the middle of an overdose. Another preventative tool is fentanyl test strips which have the potential to tell people whether their drugs are safe before they are ever consumed. With a small amount of the drug mixed with water, a user can get quick results to know if synthetic opioids are present or not.

Neither naloxone nor testing strips are currently allowed to be distributed on campus by any organization directly connected to the university. Per Oregon state law, the two products are classified as drug paraphernalia and any government-affiliated institutions have to treat them as such. A new law, House Bill 2395, is currently going through the Oregon legislature that would amend this rule. However, everyone is caught in limbo until the final decision is made.

“Not being able to provide naloxone hasn’t interfered per se, but being able to do that would be an expansion of what we already offer,” Helen Ingraham Tuttle, a student coordinator at SAPE, said.

The UO Substance Abuse Prevention and Education Program has a mission to provide “harm-reduction, evidence-based strategies to target substance use, misuse and abuse among UO students, with a goal of decreasing the risks associated with substance misuse.” It offers many services, including alcohol and cannabis usage diagnostic tests, access to counseling and peer-led trainings across campus about responsible use.

“The goal is not to change what students are doing but to help them while doing it — it’s not an abstinence program,” Tuttle said. 

A large part of SAPE’s programming has been their naloxone training events — hosted in collaboration with the HIV Alliance — where students and campus community members can educate themselves on how to recognize overdose symptoms and properly administer naloxone.

“Students have a lot of questions in terms of how to handle an overdose and to better their knowledge and ways to access naloxone,” Liseli Lastra, another SAPE student coordinator, said. “They would like to educate themselves more on the opioid crisis.”

Drug use by college students is inevitable, and with such an alarming rise of fentanyl present in street drugs leading to overdoses, students deserve easy access to safety methods and knowledge.

“Substance use is stigmatized in society, but in the campus community it is very common,” Tuttle said. “Both of these combined mean that people are doing something and not really reflecting on it or thinking about their health.”

SAPE has done a phenomenal job working with community partners like the HIV Alliance to make sure students have access to resources they may not be able to personally provide. They actively help students to become connected to community resources away from campus. 

While it’s not clear if or when regulations around naloxone distribution will change, there are paths for students to access it from nonprofits around the Eugene area. There are going to be two upcoming training sessions on May 11 and May 12 on campus and more in the coming academic year. It’s a great opportunity for students to learn how to keep themselves and their peers safe. Like so much of the country, the Eugene-Springfield area has been hit hard by fentanyl overdoses, and the community will continue to do what it can to support people in learning what they can do to help.