Yes, vending machines offering free Narcan are a welcome addition to Dallas communities. But they also feel like a dystopian omen. Still, as sad as it is, easy access to the drug has become necessary to save lives.
Conscience Conduit and nonprofit Livegy, as well as other partners, are delivering Narcan vending machines in Dallas-Fort Worth with hopes of expanding to other parts of the state. The machines provide open access to a powerful drug that can stop an opioid overdose in its tracks.
There are 30 vending machines available to be restored and set up with community partners, said Anthony Delabano of Conscience Conduit. Of these, two are already finished and ready to use. One is at the Association of Persons Affected by Addiction’s location on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Dallas, and the other is at the Deep Ellum Community Center, though it will find a permanent new home soon, Delabano said.
We’re glad the community is coming together to make this happen, and we’re rooting for success. But it’s unfortunate that these efforts are necessary at all.
County-operated Parkland Health regularly performs tests to determine if patients are experiencing fentanyl intoxication. So far this year, the number of tests, and positive results, have risen.
Between January and August, Parkland’s Rapid Response Lab reported 3,259 tests, with 803 coming back positive. During the same period last year, those numbers were 1,898 and 638 respectively, according to Parkland data.
Dr. Joseph Chang, chief medical officer at Parkland Health, told us the main driver behind that increase is that Parkland is seeing a rise in the amount of street drugs laced with fentanyl.
Whether it’s an ecstasy pill or marijuana that has been cut with the synthetic opioid, it’s important for health care professionals to know what drugs a patient might have taken. In order for them to be treated properly, Parkland is checking for fentanyl more often, Chang said.
Even more frightening is that Chang said Parkland is seeing opioids like fentanyl abused in younger and younger age groups. He told us these drugs are being sold in schools to children as young as 10 to 12 years old.
That’s something parents need to be aware of and watch vigilantly for. As part of this newspaper’s award-winning “Deadly Fake” project about fentanyl’s grip on North Texas, our colleagues told the stories of parents who lost their children to this drug. No one should have to endure that.
Delabano told us there are tentative plans to deliver Narcan vending machines to Garland ISD schools. It’s a soul-crushing reality that we need to have overdose reversal drugs in a place where children go to learn. But that’s the world fentanyl has created in North Texas.
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