USA TODAY International Edition
Schools stock up on opioid overdose drug
Critics say resources are better directed elsewhere
GLEN BURNIE, Md.– It was nearly two weeks before school opened, and Anne Arundel County’s school nurses were already getting quizzed.
The scenario: An 8-year-old boy is acting strange and sleepy. His pupils are tiny and his breathing is labored. How would they treat him?
The newly hired nurses and nurse assistants voiced mixed opinions. Then the supervisor overseeing the training in a Maryland county walloped by the opioid epidemic made a suggestion: the overdose-reversal drug Narcan.
“What do we have to lose?” Maureen
See NALOXONE , Page 2A
Neall asked.
Nearly 50,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses last year – more than from car accidents. Now schools across the nation are preparing for what some believe is inevitable: overdoses at schools.
High schools, middle schools and even some elementary schools are stocking nurses’ offices with naloxone or Narcan, the brand name for the nasal spray version of the injectable drug. Some have been required by new state laws to keep the drug on hand.
But critics question the need. Some say the effort would be better directed toward communities and institutions that see more overdoses.
“I have not seen a single data point that an overdose happened at a school,” said Eliza Wheeler of the Harm Reduction Coalition in Oakland, California. “The problem here is how they came up with that – investing millions of dollars into a problem with no data to know whether it is even happening.”
No federal agency tracks overdoses at schools, but it’s clear teens and young adults in big cities and small towns alike are dying from heroin and, increasingly, the more powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl. Overdose deaths among people ages 15 to 24 jumped nearly 33 percent from 2015 to 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nurses who work with students daily say it’s only a matter of time before a community’s ills spill over to its schools.
Karen Siska-Creel, director of school nursing at the Anne Arundel health department, pushed to get naloxone in schools because overdose deaths in the county near Baltimore were skyrocketing.
“I knew what was going on in the nation and our state,” she said. “I figured whatever is going on in our county will be in our schools.”
In 2015, Siska-Creel created the county’s overdose prevention training initiative, the first school program certified by the state of Maryland. She secured $12,500 in public funds to buy two doses of Narcan for each of the county’s 125 schools, and she trained nurses and support staff on how to administer the drug.
What started with one determined nurse in one county has become a statewide requirement. The Start Talking Maryland Act, passed by the Maryland General Assembly last year, requires all public schools to carry naloxone and to teach students about the dangers of heroin and other opioids.
At least 10 states have passed legislation about naloxone in schools. Some states such as Maryland, New Jersey and Rhode Island require schools to stock the antidote. More often, states allow a local school board or superintendent to decide.
“It’s a community decision,” said Donna Mazyck, executive director of the National Association of School Nurses.
Critics say scarce resources should be steered toward groups that face greater risk of overdose. Corey Davis, senior attorney at the National Health Law Program, cited examples such as paroled inmates with histories of drug abuse or opioid-dependent people in abstinence-based treatment programs.
Others defend the idea of naloxone in schools, even if it is not frequently used.
Toni Torsch of Baltimore County, Maryland, has advocated for wider distribution of naloxone, compassionate laws and public investment in fighting the opioid crisis since her 24-year-oldson died from an overdose in 2010.
Daniel Carl Torsch started using OxyContin at 17. He eventually turned to cheaper heroin.
On Dec. 3, 2010, Torsch thought her son was in a good place. He had completed a long-term rehab stint in Florida and seemed healthy and happy.
“He had life in his eyes,” Torsch said. “I had my boy back.”
But as she prepared to leave their home that day, she knocked on his bedroom door. There was no answer. She nudged the door open. He lay on a bed. No signs of life.
She did not know about naloxone when her son died. After she learned about the drug from a documentary, she advocated for its wider use.
In Anne Arundel County, Siska-Creel said she has heard many similar stories of mothers and fathers who have lost children. She also hears from skeptics about stocking naloxone in schools.
“You know what? I am not going to wait for a child to die,” she said. “I am not willing to wait for that to happen.”