More than a year ago, ASUO Senator Kayla Krueger began a project to make fentanyl testing strips available to students in the Erb Memorial Union.
The idea was that ASUO could help prevent overdoses by allowing students already planning on doing drugs to discreetly grab a test strip to test their drug for fentanyl — a similar concept to the condoms available in the EMU.
But UO’s Office of the General Counsel pointed out a problem: Oregon law makes the distribution of testing equipment for analyzing the strength of controlled substances, like fentanyl testing strips, illegal.
Now ASUO is lobbying state legislators to pass a package of opioid harm reduction bills, which would make exceptions for fentanyl test strips under the law and naloxone, a medicine that can reverse overdoses, more accessible.
A current junior, Krueger plans on continuing her efforts to distribute the testing strips through UO if the bills are passed.
If UO — especially as a public institution — is able to distribute these testing trips, it will help make harm reduction a norm, she said.
“It’s okay to take drug safety seriously. It’s okay to talk about it. It’s okay to be safe about it,” she said. “Because it could save your life. It could save your friend’s life. It could save someone else’s life.”
Krueger said she worked with the Oregon Student Association, a nonprofit that advocates for the collective interests of students, to lobby for the bill.
OSA Legislative Director Nick Keough submitted testimony on behalf of OSA supporting the bills and helped students submit their testimony, they said.
“Young people and students are a high-risk group, and they are highly susceptible to accidental overdoses that we have seen have led to tragic and unnecessary death,” they said.
Keough, a former UO student, said they remember when a UO student died from fentanyl-laced counterfeit oxycodone pills in 2020. He was found the day before Christmas.
“This is an absolute tragedy,” Keough said. “And there are many young people that we’re hearing are losing their lives in a similar manner.”
ASUO Executive Vice President Kavi Shrestha said the bills would also make it easier for ASUO to distribute Narcan, a brand of naloxone.
He and other ASUO members testified verbally on Jan. 30 in front of the Legislature in favor of the package of bills.
Shrestha has begun a project to distribute Narcan on campus but ran into problems when he tried to distribute it through ASUO.
“There’s just a lot of confusion over who would be held liable for distributions, [and] could it have implications on the university,” he said.
As a result, he began distributing Narcan through nonprofits instead.
Liability is a concern for many groups distributing naloxone, Shrestha said, so he’s been working with Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland) for the last few months on an amendment to one of the bills, HB 2395, which would protect distributors of naloxone from civil and criminal liability.
Krueger said Narcan is a great resource to have, but it’s a medication to use after an overdose occurs. Fentanyl testing trips can prevent overdoses in the first place.
“In tandem with Narcan, it would greatly reduce deaths from an opioid overdose,” she said.
