Ohio State deaths a reminder that student drug use is common | Opinion
Last week, three people overdosed near Ohio State University’s campus, and two of them, who were students, died from overdose.
Ohio State overdose deaths: Columbus police release names of two Ohio State University students who fatally overdosed
The following morning, the SOAR Initiative, an organization run largely by students on OSU’s campus, sent out a warning text that there were pills thought to be Adderall contaminated with fentanyl circulating around campus. While unconfirmed, it is suspected that these individuals had used those pills.
As an OSU alumna myself, my heart breaks for these individuals’ friends, family and the OSU community at large. I also know that this act, taking Adderall, is not a rare instance in the college student community. Amidst this tragic event, we must address how this heartbreaking outcome from a relatively common act could have been prevented.
The illicit drug market is saturated with fentanyl
While we may not like to admit it, drug use is often commonplace in a college student's life.
Adderall is a stimulant—other similar drugs are Ritalin and Vyvanse—and is often used to help with concentration while studying. A national study, done by The Ohio State University themselves, found that 1 in 6 college students has used a stimulant drug un-prescribed.
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Typically, there is little risk of death with taking an average prescribed amount of a stimulant, barring underlying conditions. However, as we have seen increasingly in the United States, the illicit drug market is saturated with fentanyl. Therefore, as we have seen in this case, a somewhat common and low risk of fatality act of taking a 20 mg pill of Adderall can turn deadly.
Given this information, instead of focusing on the heavy-handed task of entirely eradicating drug use, we must instead focus on how to prevent negative outcomes.
This concept is called harm reduction and acknowledges that some people will use drugs, such as college students with stimulants like Adderall, and that our efforts are best focused on ensuring that people do not experience harm from that behavior.
For example, in this situation a harm reduction strategy such as fentanyl test strips or naloxone would have been lifesaving.
Fentanyl test strips are currently illegal in Ohio
Fentanyl test strips allow a person to test their drugs before using them and have been shown to change drug use behavior in 70% of users, per a Johns Hopkins study.
Naloxone is the opioid overdose reversal medication; it brings people back from opioid overdoses.
Despite the clear efficacy of these resources, accesses these resources can be burdensome.
In Ohio, fentanyl test strips are currently illegal, though there is legislation currently in the Ohio Senate to change this. This bill, Senate Bill 296, would also remove barriers to distribution of naloxone.
As such, it is absolutely vital the Ohio Senate vote to approve this legislation to make these life-saving tools legal and more accessible. Ohio’s current law criminalizing test strips and creating barriers to naloxone is the opposite of harm reduction, and leaves people who may try a drug vulnerable to the Russian roulette of a fentanyl-contaminated drug market.
We do not have to keep experiencing tragedies like the deaths of these students over and over. The Ohio Senate must act now to make life-saving tools like fentanyl test strips legal and naloxone accessible.
More: 28-year-old man dies of overdose because law made friends afraid to call 911|Opinion
If you or a loved need fentanyl test strips, visit https://thesoarinitiative.org/#teststrips. For free naloxone, visit https://nextdistro.org/hro. Both are offered free of charge to Ohio residents.
Avery Meyer is a graduate student studying health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She grew up in Columbus, studied neuroscience at The Ohio State University and after graduating, worked as a counselor with people in treatment for opioid use disorder.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: What can be done to combat deaths like Ohio State overdoses?
