(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Today is the first day high school-aged Arlington Public Schools students can carry naloxone in schools.
Students in grades 9 and above can now carry the opioid reversal drug if they have consent from a parent or guardian, according to the school system. Those who are at least 18 years old can also provide consent if they wish.
The policy change comes four months after the fatal overdose of a 14-year-old at Wakefield High School in January. The death of Sergio Flores has led to calls for changes at APS by teachers, parents and School Board members — including a push to have more naloxone in schools and to let kids carry it.
Any student who carries the overdose-reversing drug — the most well-known brand of which is the nasal spray Narcan — must provide the day they were trained and agree to call 911 and notify school staff if used in school or at a school activity, per a presentation to the School Board last night (Thursday).
Consent may be provided through an online authorization form or via the family portal ParentVue, an option APS says will be available by the end of the day today.
Students who need training may attend training hosted by Arlington Addiction Recovery Initiative on Thursday, June 1 at Washington-Liberty High School from 7-8 p.m. Another training session is planned for the week of June 5.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) came to Arlington today to discuss substance use and the fentanyl crisis. He participated in a roundtable at National Capital Treatment and Recovery (521 N. Quincy Street), an addiction treatment center in the Ballston area.
This facility is preparing to resume offering options for teens seven years after ending its youth programs. Those services will begin June 5, a spokesman for the center told ARLnow Friday afternoon.
Consumption of fentanyl — a powerful synthetic opioid that can be prescribed or taken illegally — contributed to the deaths of nearly 2,000 Virginians in 2022, per a press release announcing Kaine’s visit.
While the number of fatal, fentanyl-involved overdoses in Arlington was not readily available, as of last Thursday, there have been seven fatal overdoses so far in 2023, according to publicly available county data.
This year there have been a total of 61 opioid incidents, of which 22 were overdoses and the rest were possession and distribution cases, according to county data.
As fentanyl-related deaths have risen, the federal government has responded with calls for de-stigmatizing addiction and for increased access to naloxone. Two months ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved an over-the-counter version of the nasal spray Narcan.
Arlington County, meanwhile, has joined lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies linked to the opioid crisis, putting settlements toward treatment. It reexamined its teen programming to provide youth and young adults with more positive experiences and steer them away from drug use.
Last week, Kaine introduced legislation with Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa, to declare fentanyl trafficking a national security threat and direct the Pentagon to work with other federal agencies and Mexican officials to tackle drug trafficking by transnational criminal organizations, the release said.
Kaine says he is also pressing the federal government to dedicate more resources to the crisis and ease access buprenorphine, which, like methadone, is used in addiction therapy to replace the effects of a stronger substances.
Additionally, the senator joined other lawmakers in asking Meta — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — to address drug trafficking on its platforms.