BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Governor Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill 367, The Campus Opioid Safety Act. The bill requires all California colleges to have Narcan (naloxone), a medication capable of rapidly reversing an opioid overdose, ready and available on campus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's data from 2020 shows that more than 56,000 people died from synthetic opioids that year, an increase of more than 56 percent over the previous year, and 18 times higher compared to 2013's numbers. In California, there were more than 4,000 opioid related deaths in 2020, compared to just under 1,700 deaths in 2019.
Narcan is administered as a nasal spray and it brings people out of overdose almost instantly, although it is still recommended to call emergency help for someone who is overdosing, even if they are administered Narcan.
"I think this medication is a crucial thing to have in every police officer cruiser, in every firetruck, in every campus safety vehicle on campus, and here in the campus student health and wellness center," says Charles Collom, the director of the Bakersfield College Student Health and Wellness Center. "It is a relatively inexpensive, relatively safe medication that almost instantly reverses life-threatening respiratory depression in someone that's overdosing."
Bakersfield College expects to implement the Narcan on campus before the end of the fall semester.
For detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to administer Narcan, visit the American Medical Association's website where you can watch a video explaining the process.
