“People can and do recover from addiction every single day, but they have to be alive to do it,” WVU Collegiate Recovery Program Director Olivia Dale Pape said when asked about making naloxone more-readily available on WVU’s Morgantown campus.
West Virginia University is participating in a statewide initiative with the West Virginia Drug Intervention Institute and the West Virginia Collegiate Recovery Network to distribute naloxone kits to college campuses across the state.
WVU students are already able to access naloxone and training on how to administer the drug hosted by WellWVU and Collegiate Recovery. Student groups can request a training session at any point. Upon completion of the training, students receive free naloxone kits.
Pape said these additional kits, which include instruction for use in an emergency situation, will be placed in residence halls and several other high-traffic student life areas.
“Think about places like the Mountainlair, some of those high-traffic areas and places where there are already [automated external defibrillator] machines and first aid kits. We can just put a naloxone box right next to that,” Pape said.
In addition to potentially saving the life of a WVU student, employee or visitor, having the kits visible and readily available helps reduce the stigma of addiction.
“Addiction is a disease. And just like anything else, if a person had heart disease and needed an AED, we want to make sure naloxone is available. Just by having it more visible and accessible, whether or not we actually end up even needing it, kind of shows that we’re working to reduce that negative image,” Pape said.
“Naloxone is something that could potentially give someone a chance to lead a better, stronger, healthier life because they were able to come back from something like an overdose.”
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