Earlier this 12 months, The Mercury Information made an alarming discovery after polling 33 Bay Space college districts: Greater than a 3rd hadn’t skilled academics and workers to acknowledge the indicators of scholars overdosing on fentanyl. Moreover, greater than 1 / 4 of the surveyed districts hadn’t made naloxone available in colleges, even supposing the opioid antagonist can quickly cease the varieties of fentanyl overdoses which are killing 18 Californians every day.
Why? Does one other baby have to die on campus earlier than we alter our insurance policies?
California can not justify withholding data and instruments that may save younger lives. Fentanyl, an artificial opioid that’s 50 occasions stronger than heroin, has exploded throughout California. The drug is now accountable for one in each 5 deaths amongst younger folks, surpassing the mixed complete of all different medicine. In my legislative district of Santa Clara County, the variety of younger lives misplaced to fentanyl spiked an astonishing 365% lately. In accordance with the newest out there information, 135 younger folks died of fentanyl in 2021 alone.
The fentanyl epidemic is so insidious as a result of drug traffickers are lacing it into counterfeit variations of fashionable leisure medicine similar to Adderall, oxycodone and Xanax. Younger folks can simply discover and buy these seemingly less-dangerous medicine on-line and share them. Teenagers underneath peer strain to swallow a drug might unknowingly ingest fentanyl, and with out medical intervention, the scenario can shortly flip deadly. Even a tiny dose of fentanyl — the equal of 5 grains of salt — will be deadly.
Fortuitously, right here in Santa Clara County, we’re main the security response to forestall extra pupil deaths, and I’ve authored laws to scale our program statewide. Final 12 months, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, District Lawyer Jeff Rosen, County Superintendent of Faculties Mary Ann Dewan, County Behavioral Well being and others got here collectively to launch the Santa Clara County Fentanyl Working Group with a mission to make sure that each college was ready to acknowledge fentanyl overdoses and take motion to save lots of younger lives. Academics acquired academic supplies to share with households and naloxone kits to forestall deaths on campus. College students discovered concerning the risks and prevalence of fentanyl-laced drugs. And in a span of 1 month, the initiative saved the lives of two overdosing college students in San Jose.
This 12 months, I’ve authored Senate Invoice (SB) 10 to comprehensively handle the fentanyl disaster in colleges statewide. The invoice requires that faculty security plans, already mandated in each college, be modified to incorporate concrete methods for the prevention and remedy of pupil opioid overdoses, together with coaching for academics and different college workers. SB 10 will elevate consciousness amongst college workers, college students and their households concerning the rising opioid epidemic. It is going to additionally give educators and different college workers the required data and instruments to guard college students.
My bipartisan invoice, which is supported by California’s academics and different college and pupil teams, aligns with the just lately handed state funds that ensures that each center and highschool can simply entry and afford naloxone, generally recognized underneath its model title Narcan.
SB 10 is called after Melanie Ramos, a teenage lady who died of a fentanyl overdose final 12 months. Melanie believed she was taking a Percocet and was discovered lifeless within the rest room of her Hollywood highschool. Melanie’s legacy can be one in all reduction for folks who won’t ever obtain that dreaded name from a college informing them that their teenager was discovered unresponsive. Let’s instantly deliver lifesaving coaching and assets to colleges and do every part in our energy to forestall extra overdoses.
Dave Cortese represents District 15 within the California State Senate.
