Deadly Opioid Epidemic On Campus: Here's What College Students Are Doing To Combat It

A devastating epidemic has made its way onto college campuses across the country, where students are carrying opioid overdose reversal drugs in their backpacks along with their textbooks and other belongings.

Overdoses, particularly due to fentanyl, are increasing on college campuses. University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill mourned the loss of three students in the past two years, according to a Monday NPR report.

One student at UNC showed a reporter that he had 518 vials of the overdose reversal spray Naloxone, also known as Narcan, in the closet of his off-campus apartment – far more than the local hospitals keep in stock. He's handing them out to his fellow classmates. 

"If you are in the position where you have had to give somebody naloxone, they've almost died," said the college senior Riley Sullivan.

When an overdose happens, access to naloxone can be the difference between life and death.

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Deadly Fentanyl Crisis

Fentanyl was involved in the vast majority of all teen overdose deaths in 2021, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Over 109,000 Americans have died as a result of drug overdoses in the 12 months ending in January 2023 with Fentanyl responsible for at least 200 deaths every day.

Opioids On Campus: What Students Are Doing

Nabarun Dasgupta, a research scientist at UNC's School of Public Health co-founded Remedy Alliance/For The People, a nonprofit that supplies naloxone. More than a decade ago, as a Ph.D. student, Dasgupta envisioned distributing naloxone to students. Back then, he says, the gesture might have led to his expulsion or worse because naloxone was erroneously perceived as promoting drug use.

However, the painful experiences of a generation of young adults functioning in the midst of a devastating opioid crisis have shifted attitudes.

Harm Reduction

Dasgupta was joined by another friend, Caroline Clodfelter who, like many young adults, had high school friends who used drugs as mental health coping mechanisms. Clodfelter said her university experience helped reshape her perspective.  

“Harm reduction, to me, is more than just naloxone. It's more than just fentanyl testing strips. It's the support and the acceptance that comes with it,” she said.

Now Clodfelter and Dasgupta help make naloxone more available to grassroots groups like the one Sullivan co-founded with his classmates called the Carolina Harm Reduction Union, which holds tabling events on campus to distribute naloxone and spread awareness. 

"Naloxone is what I call an anti-funeral drug. It's this perfect antidote that really saves people's lives," said Dasgupta. 

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Photo courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Platteville media kit