Sept. 25 was Save a Life Day, which has grown from two West Virginia counties into a nationwide event.
Harm reduction advocates in Charleston, where the overdose prevention initiative first began, are still keen on the importance of preventing overdose deaths.
At the office of the Unitarian Universalist Church on Charleston’s West Side, Sarah Stone, the co-director of SOAR West Virginia, is on the porch putting together overdose kits.
They contain doses of naloxone, which can be used to save people from a fatal drug overdose.
“Everyone needs to have naloxone,” Stone said. “No matter who you think you are, always having it’s better than not having it.”
Joe Solomon, a Charleston City Council member, said sponsors have enabled the distribution of 2,000 naloxone kits across the state and the country.
He said it should be normal for it to be available anywhere.
“Good spots for these are everywhere, a restroom, a convenience store, a restaurant, a bar, a church,” Solomon said.
Save a Life Day started small – in just two counties. Now, it’s all over the state and the country.
“All 50 states are now taking part for the first time, all 55 West Virginia counties as well,” Solomon said. “As well as all 13 Appalachian states. And it’s grown from here in West Virginia Appalachia to now all the states, including states you thought might be tricky to get on board, but weren’t really including, you know, Hawaii and Alaska. They’re squarely on the map.”
Fatal overdoses have fallen in West Virginia, according to federal data, but the addiction crisis continues. Last week, the city of Charleston alone recorded 35 overdoses in a 24-hour period. No one died, thanks in part to the availability of naloxone.
“It feels kind of meaningful that the state that’s been leading in the country with its overdose rate for as long as I think most of us can remember is something that we can be really proud of,” Solomon said. “This thing that started as a two-county pilot here in the heart of West Virginia, Kanawha and Putnam, and then spread to the hardest hit counties the next year after that. It was 17 hard-hit West Virginia counties. Year after that, it was all 55 West Virginia counties. It just kept blooming. And I think it’s just something that’s been tended by West Virginians, tended by Appalachians.”
Lake Sidikman, the harm reduction program coordinator at the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, said everyone should have naloxone and know how to use it.
“One day, I was walking my dog at a park, and a neighbor, someone I vaguely recognized, came running up to me and said, ‘Do you have naloxone?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I do. I have some in my purse,’ she said. “And they had found someone who had overdosed, and we both ran over there and were able to use the naloxone on that person and get them back up breathing and conscious, and so you just never know.”
Another thing Sidikman points out: naloxone doesn’t really go bad.
“So I always tell people, don’t throw away expired naloxone,” Sidikman said. “If you’re concerned about the expiration you can definitely get some fresh stuff, but keep the expired naloxone, because the worst thing that could happen is that it’s a little bit less effective.”
Stone said naloxone that’s kept outside can freeze in the winter, but that’s easy to fix.
“And if you find yourself in a position where you think, oh, this might be frozen, just stick it in your armpit for a second, or between your thighs for a second, just for a minute, to get it thawed out, and then use it,” Stone said.
According to Stone, the naloxone boxes that are outside in Charleston are replenished frequently.
“And while they go very quickly, they’re not outside for very long,” she said. “We’re not at all worried about if the naloxone is still good based on temperature.”
Solomon said organizers only found out earlier this week that Save a Life Day had reached 1,000 events.
“It’s just been an exponential kind of curve since the beginning,” he said. “I mean, last year was 600-something, and I kind of thought that’s where it would simmer around.”
Naloxone was approved by the Food And Drug Administration in 1971, the same year Starbucks was founded.
“And so what we’ve been trying to do here in Kanawha County, but certainly in all other 54 counties these last few years, is turn this antidote into more than just an antidote, but really a movement so that we can normalize naloxone and make sure that it that it’s everywhere,” Solomon said.
Curtis Tate / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
