Substance Use Treatment Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Advocates Celebrate First Year Of Narcan Vending Machine

Local harm reduction advocates celebrated the first anniversary of the installation of a Narcan vending machine in Charleston on Monday.

An unassuming former newspaper box sits unlocked at a church on Charleston’s west side. On Monday afternoon, the box wore a happy birthday hat with a balloon tied to its handle.

The box is filled with Narcan, an opioid reversal drug that can stop an overdose. Also available in this box are drug testing strips and plan B emergency contraceptives.

It was the box’s first birthday and advocates gathered to celebrate with a party.

The event is meant as a beacon of hope and celebration with music, food, dancing and chalk drawings and messages like, “We love you” and “You are valuable.”

Chelsea Steelhammer is a volunteer with SOAR, a Charleston-based community group that says it promotes the health, dignity and voices of individuals who are impacted by drug use.

Steelhammer said the box has helped distribute 300 Narcan kits, each containing two doses, in the year it’s been installed.

“People can come and get it and there’s no questions asked, there’s no real stigma about just coming into a church parking lot, walking around, coming back out, nobody knows what you’re doing,” Steelhammer said. “And you can get things that might save your life or a loved one’s life.”

Steelhammer said people have a misconception about Narcan. She says it should be treated like any first aid item.

“They’re like, ‘I don’t use drugs,’ but it’s not for you, because you can’t use it on yourself,” Steelhammer said. “So, it’s, it’s just something to have in your first aid box.”

Gail Michelson is a volunteer with SOAR and a lawyer who has watched the opioid epidemic unfold throughout the legal system and in her community.

“When it all began to come out about how these pills became available to people legitimately,” Michelson said. “I thought they had started a whole epidemic here and that we must do everything we can to stop it and keep people alive.”

Michelson said the vending machines are a more accessible and realistic way for people who suffer from substance use disorder to obtain harm reduction tools.

“Because people don’t want to go in to pay $60 or even if it was free and go to their local pharmacist and go ‘Oh, do you use drugs?’ It’s a very nice and anonymous way to get it done,” Michelson said.

The box was installed by SOAR, using grant money from the Women’s Health Center and AIDs United. The Women’s Health Center in Charleston also has a Narcan vending machine.

“If you can reach out to SOAR, we could probably get you some funding or hook up with partnerships so that you will be able to be a community lifesaver as well,” Steelhammer said. “And even if you’re not interested in a whole box, but you want training or your church or business or organization, we can provide that for free so that you’re able to better serve your community.”

SOAR is working with CareSource, a health insurance agency, and other partners to place more than 50 naloxone vending machines across the eastern states, including West Virginia this year.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

W.Va. Peer Recovery Support Specialist Wins National Award

A peer recovery support specialist at a Marshall-based recovery program has won the Cornerstone Award.

The award honors an individual or organization that has gone above and beyond to support students in recovery.

Aaron Blankenship is a West Virginia Collegiate Recovery Network (WVCRN) team member and recovery support specialist at Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College.

“Through his unwavering dedication and tireless efforts, Aaron Blankenship exemplifies the essence of the ARHE Cornerstone Award for Student Support,” said Dr. Pamela Alderman, president of Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College. “His commitment to going above and beyond in supporting students in recovery transforms lives and serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration for our community. We celebrate Aaron’s profound impact and recognize him as a cornerstone of support for those navigating the recovery journey.”

The WVCRN is housed within the Marshall University Research Corporation with support from the Marshall University Center of Excellence for Recovery.

Blankenship will accept his award at the National Collegiate Recovery Conference in San Diego, California this summer.

According to one of his peers, Hattie Newsome, student success coordinator for Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, Blankenship’s own recovery gave him the empathy and drive to work passionately with students and the recovery community.

“He inspires those in recovery by showing them they can achieve sobriety, goals and their dreams can come true,” she said.

Group Receives ARC Grant To Strengthen Community Health

A new grant will help train and place community health workers to strengthen behavioral health systems in 20 W.Va. counties.

Last week, the Community Education Group (CEG) was awarded $7.7 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) for their new project, Help Our People Expand the Ecosystem (HOPEE).

This multistate initiative comes from the ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE), which drives economic transformation through collaboration.

For their project, CEG will be working with the Kentucky Rural Health Association (KRHA), Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) Kentucky, the West Virginia-based SUD Collaborative (SUDC), and the Virginia Rural Health Association.

Together, CEG and their HOPEE project partners will work to train and place new community health workers to strengthen behavioral healthcare systems in a 56-county region. Twenty West Virginia counties will be included.

According to Executive Director of CEG, A. Toni Young, this project will expand on CEG’s community health worker training program, CHAMPS, which trains individuals with lived experience in substance use disorder recovery to become community health workers.

“So what we wanted to do is to take individuals from towns, hollers, communities networks, and say, if we trained you to do the HIV screening, trained you to do the hepatitis C screening, trained you to do motivational interviewing or networking, could we train people that folks knew and were comfortable with and could listen to,” Young said. “And those folks may be more willing to come back into the community or come back for treatment for HIV or screening for HIV, or for some sort of a medically assisted treatment and management before or some other behavioral health services.”

According to CEG, its overarching goal is to improve socioeconomic disparities in Appalachia while addressing pressing and overlapping syndemics eroding the region’s broader economy, workforce and health outcomes.

A syndemic is two or more illness states interacting poorly with each other and negatively influencing the mutual course of each disease trajectory.

“Many things coming into effect one person, or one community, or one town or one state, that we’re taking a syndemic approach,” Young said. “So rather than saying, we only want to talk to the individuals about substance use disorder, right, we only want to get them to that MAT (Medically Assisted Treatment) provider to deal with substance use, we don’t want to just do that. We want to get them to there to talk about HIV, and when get them there to talk about hepatitis C, and we want to get them there to talk about PrEP.”

CEG said it will work with its partners and health care and behavioral care providers, including Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) providers, will train, hire, and support community health workers. The project will build capacity in communities to address the substance use, HIV, and viral hepatitis syndemic and increase support and infrastructure for health care providers–all while providing coinciding workforce development and job training support.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Veterans Counselors Have Opportunity To Collaborate

Mental health providers and substance use disorder counselors are coming together to share information between those who may work with veterans in the community.

The Martinsburg VA Medical Center Mental Health Program is hosting a community mental health and substance use disorder summit virtually and in person.

On Friday, April 19 at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center, health professionals will gather to discuss treatment methods and interventions for veterans suffering from mental illness or substance use disorder.

The event will bring together mental health providers and substance use disorder counselors to share information and provide educational tools to those who may work with veterans in the community.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than one in 10 veterans have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder.

Participants wishing to earn their Continued Medical Education (CME) certification will need to email Theresa Crawford at theresa.crawford@va.gov.

Those who will not be earning a certification are not required to register.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Marshall Health.

Drug Testing Strips Are Legalized In W.Va.

A bill to legalize drug test strips was signed into law by Governor Jim Justice Friday.

A bill to legalize drug test strips was signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice Friday.

A drug test strip is a small strip of paper that can detect the presence of cutting agents, like fentanyl, in all different kinds of drugs.

Under previous state code, drug testing strips were considered drug paraphernalia. This means someone who was found in possession of drugs could have been additionally charged for possession of drug paraphernalia if they had drug testing strips.

Senate Bill 269 removes drug testing strips from the state’s list of drug paraphernalia.

Lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2022, exempting testing strips that detect fentanyl from that statute. House Bill 4373 went into effect in June of that year.

Illicit drug users can use test trips to verify their drugs aren’t contaminated with something else more lethal like fentanyl or xylazine.

Proponents of the bill like Iris Sidikman (they/them), harm reduction program director for the Women’s Health Center, say it could save lives.

They said while the fentanyl testing strips have been useful, the newest cutting agent, xylazine – or tranq – is the most requested test strip. Under current state law, it would be illegal for the clinic to distribute xylazine tests.

“The most immediate thing that this legislation would allow is for us to distribute xylazine test strips, which many people have asked me about here at the clinic as part of our Harm Reduction Program, people are interested in them.

Sen. Eric Tarr, a Putnam-R, was the only lawmaker to vote against Senate Bill 269. He said he wants West Virginia to be the last place someone would want to use or sell drugs.

“West Virginia ought to be the absolute worst place in the country to be involved in the drug industry, illicit drug industry,” Tarr said. “This should be the absolute last place in the world do you want to come to do drugs, sell drugs, be busted for drugs. And frankly, for rehab, because our rehab has been an abysmal failure.”

According to a June 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021, the highest rate of drug overdose deaths involving xylazine occurred in Region 3, which includes West Virginia.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Lawmakers Legalize Drug Testing Strips

A bill to legalize drug test strips passed both chambers last week.

A drug test strip is a small strip of paper that can detect the presence of cutting agents, like fentanyl, in all different kinds of drugs.

Under the current state code, drug testing strips are considered drug paraphernalia. This means someone who is found in possession of drugs can be additionally charged for possession of drug paraphernalia if they have drug testing strips.

Senate Bill 269 removes drug testing strips from the state’s list of drug paraphernalia. It passed the Senate on Tuesday and the House of Delegates on Friday. The bill has gone to Gov. Jim Justice’s desk for his signature.

Lawmakers passed a similar bill in 2022, exempting testing strips that detect fentanyl from that statute. House Bill 4373 went into effect in June of that year.

Proponents of the bill like Iris Sidikman (they/them), harm reduction program director for the Women’s Health Center in Charleston, say it could save lives.

They said while the fentanyl testing strips have been useful, the newest cutting agent, xylazine is the most requested test strip. Under current state law, it would be illegal for the clinic to distribute xylazine tests.

According to the Bureau for Public Health’s Drug Overdose Mortality report, in 2021 fentanyl and fentanyl analogs were involved in 76 percent of all drug overdose deaths occurring in West Virginia, up from 58 percent in 2017.

According to a June 2023 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) brief, in 2021, the highest rate of drug overdose deaths involving xylazine occurred in Region 3, which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Fentanyl was the most frequently co-occurring drug mentioned on xylazine death records between 2018 and 2021.

Sidikman said people knowing what is in their drugs allows them to use more safely and better respond to overdoses around them.

“I think that they allow people to make better, more informed decisions about their health and what they do with their bodies and I think that that’s a good thing,” Sidikman said.

Sidikman said the harm reduction program aims to provide people with the tools necessary to stay healthy and safe while they navigate their lives.

“Whether or not they choose to end their substance use, reduce their substance use whatever they choose,” Sidikman said. “In order for people to be able to make positive changes in their life, they have to be alive.”

Sen. Eric Tarr, R-Putnam, was the only legislator to vote against Senate Bill 269.

“So in spite of all the efforts that we’ve made on these enablement measures, and that’s what I see, this is just, it’s another enablement feel-good measure,” Tarr said. “We are seeing still an escalation of our population that is using drugs and being significantly harmed by them.”

Tarr said he wants West Virginia to be the last place someone would want to use or sell drugs.

“West Virginia ought to be the absolute worst place in the country to be involved in the drug industry, illicit drug industry,” Tarr said. “This should be the absolute last place in the world you want to come to do drugs, sell drugs, be busted for drugs, and frankly, for rehab, because our rehab has been an abysmal failure.”

Sidikman said the legalization of all drug testing strips would allow them and their team to stay ahead and the newest cutting agents.

“If there is a new drug that enters the supply that we that testing strips are developed for, we would automatically be able to give those out and we wouldn’t have to wait and go back to the legislature and get those legalized before being able to give them out,” Sidikman said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.