On Oct. 30, University of Oregon Substance Abuse Prevention and Education held a training session to demonstrate how to administer Narcan, known as naloxone, a drug used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
SAPE is an organization on campus aimed at educating students on using substances in a safer way.
The event took place at 6 p.m. in Allen 221. SAPE gave a presentation on opioid use, types of opioids and how to recognize the symptoms of an overdose before showing a video demonstration on how to administer Narcan.
Each student in attendance was also provided with a free dose of Narcan to take with them.
SAPE has been conducting Narcan training sessions since 2019, due to an uptick in opioid overdoses among young people.
“Nationally, we’re just seeing trends of opioid overdoses in communities, and more college campuses have increased training and education surrounding opioid overdose,” Alexis Drakatos, UO’s assistant director of substance misuse prevention, said.
Prior to this year, SAPE partnered with a community organization called HIV Alliance to lead Narcan training sessions on campus. HIV Alliance also provided students in attendance with Narcan. Due to a change in legislation allowing the university to distribute Narcan, which was previously considered drug paraphernalia, to students, SAPE is now able to provide Narcan to students themselves.
“With policy changes in the state of Oregon, we’ve been able to use our team to host trainings now,” Drakatos said.
These policy changes are due in part to lobbying done by the Associated Students at the University of Oregon, according to Drakatos.
“[ASUO has] done a lot of lobbying for some of the laws and bills that have been changed at the state level,” Drakatos said. “We’re just responding to students wanting this education, recognizing that it’s a need in [Eugene, Springfield and Lane County] as well.”
Students can obtain Narcan with a prescription from a pharmacist or over the counter, or through community organizations such as the HIV Alliance and Community Outreach through Radical Empowerment.
“Even if you’re not under the impression that you’re using opioids, if you’re using different substances like cocaine or any type of pills, there is that risk that you are ingesting fentanyl, so [an overdose] is more likely than you would expect, and Narcan is really easy to administer, and now it’s accessible through us,” Gabriela Gutierrez, a senior and one of the student directors of SAPE, said.
Narcan can be used to reverse the effects of opioid overdoses, but is not effective in treating other types of drug overdoses, such as stimulant overdoses. Narcan is also not meant as a substitute for seeking medical attention and is only meant to keep the person alive until they can receive medical care.
Despite its importance, Narcan can be “hard to find and awkward to ask for” in addition to being expensive, according to Gutierrez.
“There is more cross-contamination with fentanyl happening right now in Lane County, so [Narcan] is important to have because even though college students aren’t necessarily using more traditional opioids that you would see in a medical setting, it is being found in cocaine and molly and stuff,” Gutierrez said.
Kit Wooler is a senior and a student director of SAPE who helped host the training session.
“We will be offering [another training session] next month. Date and time to be determined, but it will be approximately a month from now,” Wooler said.
According to Wooler, SAPE provides specific training by request, most popularly with Fraternity and Sorority Life.
“We recently did [a training session] for Chi Psi [fraternity] about navigating conflict with people who are under the influence of alcohol and using alcohol in safer ways,” Wooler said.
Olivia Schwarz is a sophomore student who attended the training.
“I have a lot of personal experience with experiencing drug overdose, and I would like to know how to administer something so lifesaving and get more information on it,” Schwarz said.
According to Schwarz, everyone should “absolutely” know how to administer Narcan.
“You might think you won’t experience something like [a drug overdose] personally, or you won’t experience someone else going through something so hard, but it could happen, and you never know. So just being able to be equipped with it feels really powerful.”
