Los Angeles schools allow students to carry Narcan after series of teen opioid overdoses (The 19th)
Photo courtesy of Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images.
Experts say that the nation’s second-largest school system could influence districts across the country to adopt similar interventions, putting public schools on the frontlines of the fight against drug misuse.
By Nadra Nittle, The 19th, March 9, 2023
LOS ANGELES — After a 15-year-old girl from Bernstein High School died of a fentanyl overdose on campus, Jaylene Mora Torres wanted to prevent similar tragedies from occurring.
Torres, a junior at the STEM Academy of Hollywood at Bernstein High, quickly signed up for a training at the school on how to administer naloxone shortly after the 15-year-old, Melanie Ramos, died on September 13. A fast-acting medicine widely known by the brand name Narcan, naloxone counteracts the potentially fatal effects of opioid overdoses such as slow and shallow breathing. Access to the medicine can make the difference between life and death after an opioid overdose.
“It was important to me because I don’t want someone close to me that I know that possibly does [drugs] to pass,” Torres said. “I also want to be well educated on what I could possibly do to help someone that’s going through an overdose or even just being able to see the signs of it.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) announced after Ramos died that it would make naloxone available at each of its K-12 schools and train staff and volunteers on how to administer it. But what hasn’t been clear is if the roughly half a million students in the nation’s second-largest district may carry Narcan in schools. The district clarified its policy in a January 31 letter in which Superintendent Alberto Carvalho told school board members that students are allowed to carry Narcan. He explained that this non-addictive agent “does not have any effect on a person if there are no opioids in their body.”