While the news is full of other stories, the opioid crisis has not gone away. Neither has the mental health crisis in youth. These issues converge in our schools. 

From World. Residents of the West Linn-Wilsonville School District near Portland, Ore., elected Kelly Sloop to the school board in May 2021. The pharmacist and mother of three said that the state’s prolonged school closures and decriminalization of drug possession have created a double whammy for Oregon residents. “We have a mental health crisis amongst our youth,” Sloop said.

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Find out when your state prays.

Early this year, Sloop and other members of the school board voted unanimously to stock Narcan in its high schools. With a rising number of drug overdose deaths among young Americans, some other schools are doing the same.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 16,849 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose in 1999. Two decades later, that number had grown to 70,630. A 2018 study reported that opioid-related deaths among children and teenagers nearly tripled from 1999 to 2016.

Naloxone, often referred to by the brand name Narcan, is an opioid antagonist that can reverse the respiratory symptoms of opioid overdoses. . . .

An NASN position paper endorses the use of naloxone in schools as part of their “emergency preparedness and response plans.” . . .

As of August 2020, 27 states had laws addressing naloxone use in schools, with seven states requiring school districts to institute a policy for the overdose drug. . . . In 2019, Oregon legislators passed Senate Bill 665, requiring the State Board of Education to formulate guidelines for opioid overdose responses in schools, including the use of naloxone if available. . . .

Mendonca pointed out drug overdoses aren’t going away. “Mental health, isolation … so many things have been exacerbated by this pandemic,” she said. “This is something we can’t pretend isn’t still happening because it is.”

From World.