Health department fighting overdoses
Naloxone vending machines installed to assist those with opioid use disorder
Last week the Anne Arundel County Health Department finished installing vending machines throughout the county stocked with naloxone and other items to assist those experiencing opioid use disorder.
The free vending machines are located in the Brooklyn Park Library, Deale Library, Eastport Community Center, Jennifer
Road Detention Center, Severn Center and the Ordnance Road Correctional Center. The seventh is temporarily located at the county’s Health Services Building but will ultimately be placed in the Glen Burnie Health Center, which is under construction.
The vending machines also offer test strips to see if a drug is laced with fentanyl or xylazine, potentially fatal additives, as well as masks and COVID-19 tests. Naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, is an opioid overdose-reversing drug. It typically costs around $45 to purchase at the drugstore.
“For us, it’s really about making sure that people have an opportunity to recover,” Anne Arundel Health Officer Tonii Gedin said Monday at an event introducing the machines at the county’s Health Services Building in Annapolis. “Of course, as the health department, we want individuals to stop misusing drugs and substances. But, if you’re not at that place yet, what are the things that we can do to make sure that we are saving lives and giving people another opportunity and another day.”
According to the county’s opioid dashboard, the highest overdose rates over the past three years were concentrated in Glen Burnie, Annapolis, Severn, Linthicum, Brooklyn Park and Pasadena.
Last year, the health department recorded 708 opioid overdoses, compared with 707 in 2022, a 0.14% increase. Last year the county reported 128 fatal overdoses, compared to 122 the prior year.
“We used data to really drive where these machines would be located,” Gedin said.
Six of the machines were paid for with $25,800 in grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention Overdose Data to Action. The last machine was funded with $4,300 from the county’s spring 2022 legal settlement with opioid manufacturers. Narcan is supplied through the state.
Kristy Blalock, executive director for Gaudenzia Addiction Treatment and Recovery Services’ Maryland operations, including the Crownsville and Glen Burnie sites, characterized the decision to purchase the machines as “brilliant” when the plan was publicly announced in October.
“This is the right thing to do both for the recovering community and the larger community,” she said then. “We know that Narcan saves lives, and this is a great addition to be able to reach more people who either need Narcan themselves, for a loved one, or a complete stranger.”
While the drug is available at most pharmacies, the vending machines remove the stigma that some attach to the drug, Blalock said.
The state’s Opioid Abatement Special Revenue Fund, established in March 2022, will receive around $31 million over the next 18 years in settlement money from a multijurisdictional lawsuit against opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and the three largest distributors of the drug class, Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen.
Last fiscal year the county received around $1.6 million from the fund and spent around $24,000. This fiscal year it will receive around $2.3 million and spend about the same amount.
In December, the Anne Arundel County Council voted unanimously to allocate $1.6 million for services and a grant program to help recovery residences install sprinklers. The vote came after a council bill was passed in September setting up requirements around fire suppression equipment in recovery residences.
Opioid abatement funding has also helped pay for a SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) coordinator; a harm reduction coordinator; an overdose team; a community health nurse; substance abuse prevention coalitions in the health department; along with a new program specialist and medication-assisted treatment services in the Department of Detention Facilities.
The health department has no immediate plans to purchase more machines, but that could change depending on how frequently the existing machines are used. The first three machines were installed about a month ago and have been restocked once.
“Narcan/naloxone is a material that everyone should have on them,” Gedin said. “You don’t always know who’s struggling and who might be misusing substances.”