FOR PREVENTING FENTANYL OVERDOSES

WE ERE INSPIRED BY the fishbowl condom initiative during the AIDS crisis,” says Alison Heller, who founded the drug-test-strip distribution nonprofit Fentcheck with Dean Shold in 2019. The two met at Burning Man and realized they shared an interest in harm reduction amid an uptick in fentanyl-related overdose deaths in their Oakland, California, community. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that Shold says can be 100 times more powerful than morphine, is increasingly being found in the kinds of recreational drugs used by young people; Kaiser Family Foundation reported 1,457 opioid overdose deaths in California in 2020 among 25-to-34-year-olds, the age group with the highest mortality rate in the state. They decided to act, procuring fentanyl test strips from Canadian biotech company BTNX and distributing them in parks around their area. Eventually, volunteers began placing them in participating bars, restaurants, galleries, tattoo parlors, and other places that recreational users might be. (Instructions are wrapped around each strip.) “We’re trying to figure out where the demographic that’s most susceptible goes and make [testing] available to them and do it anonymously,” Shold says. That’s been an obstacle: Fentcheck doesn’t collect personal data or have a way to measure the test strips’ effectiveness, so it’s been difficult to get grants. Most of their funding comes from the venues and the community through fundraisers set up by volunteers, such as movie nights and drag shows. Still, need and interest have helped Heller and Shold expand to Portland, Oregon; Reno, Nevada; Philadelphia; three New York City boroughs; and the UC Berkeley campus.