The Los Angeles Unified School District has announced that it will make Narcan, an anti-overdose medication, available to all schools. This announcement was made after a 15-year-old student was found dead in a Hollywood school’s bathroom following a fentanyl overdose.
Alberto M. Carvalho, the superintendent, said that naloxone (Narcan) would be available at all K-12 schools. The medication has turned out to be crucial as it “temporarily reverses the effects of an overdose in emergency scenarios.” The National Institutes of Health has said it’s safe and is administered as a nasal spray.
“Research shows that the availability of naloxone along with overdose education is effective at decreasing overdoses and death–and will save lives,” Dr. Smita Malhotra, Medical Director of LAUSD, said in a statement. “There has been a growing trend of illicit drugs and contaminated pills containing fentanyl and other life-threatening substances that have entered Los Angeles. Los Angeles Unified will do everything in our power to ensure that not another student in our community is a victim to the growing opioid epidemic. Keeping students safe and healthy remains our highest priority.”
Dr. Malhotra also said that Los Angeles Unified would be implementing “peer-to-peer counseling” and will work to educate the communities about the dangers of drugs.