Boxes of injectable naloxone and Narcan sit on the table, while Drake Dalumpines lays on the floor in fetal position before roughly 40 UW students. Meanwhile, Cyril Clement, executive director of the University of Washington chapter of Narcare, looks around the room, waiting for one of the students to explain the next step in saving someone’s life.
The Narcan training, hosted by Narcare, is part of a growing movement to combat the opioid crisis in Washington. According to third-year Shubham Bansal, founding member of Narcare and president of Narcare National, the organization advocates for increased awareness and access to naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdose, and focuses on harm reduction through a community-based approach.
Bansal and other students founded Narcare in 2023 as an independent nonprofit organization based in Washington. It has since expanded nationwide with various chapters advocating for increased accessibility to naloxone in communities. Additionally, Narcare conducts community walks to distribute naloxone to businesses and neighborhoods, hosts training sessions, and raises awareness about the ongoing opioid crisis.
“I thought it was kind of crazy how Narcan was expensive to buy over-the-counter,” Bansal said. “There are free resources with people and I’m very well connected to them, so I thought that [Narcare] can bridge that gap for free Narcan and kind of just [spread] it as quickly as possible and distribute as far as possible.”
Since April of 2024, the number of deaths due to overdoses has decreased. However, In the United States, opioid overdose is still the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18-45. In 2023, there were 1,085 fentanyl-related deaths in King County.
After losing a close friend to an opioid overdose, Bansal made it his mission to empower people to be able to take action during an opioid overdose.
“I want to channel some of my energy into doing something that could really help others who [have] lost people – others who are going through substance abuse problems,” Bansal said.
As an immigrant, Clement shared how he found it disturbing that there seems to be a dissonance in how people react to the crisis they witness every day on the streets.
“It didn't really sit right with me,” Clement said. “I thought people do care. It's just maybe they don't have the resources and the awareness that they need to kind of do something about it.”
Empowering the community
One of Narcare’s main goals is to make naloxone as accessible as possible. On the UW campus, they have worked to ensure naloxone is more readily available. Students can obtain it from vending machines located in Odegaard and Suzzallo libraries, and it’s also available at Husky Health Center.
Free safe-sex resources and supplies at Hall Health on Thursday, November 2, 2023.
Additionally, Clement mentioned they are working with UW to include naloxone in the emergency kit packets located in each building.
Another way Narcare distributes naloxone is by reaching out to local neighborhoods in the greater Seattle area, including the U-District, Fremont, and Capitol Hill. They also set up stands at farmers' markets and conduct community walks, providing naloxone to businesses and community members.
On the first Monday of every month, Narcare hosts a monthly community training session at Cal Anderson park in order to extend their reach in the Seattle area.
Narcare has also expanded outreach by working with UW food pantry, providing the space with naloxone. Maggie O’Brien, communication coordinator at the UW Food Pantry, emphasized that not only UW students can benefit with having naloxone within reach.
“We interact with a lot of individuals who are not part of the community, but do live in the U-District,” O’Brien said. “Some of the time, they're dealing with drug abuse issues, and so it is super important that we have that [naloxone] on us.”
Bansal also explained that fatalities due to overdose are not always caused by substance abuse. One organization Bansal spoke with was the group Song for Charlie, an organization founded after the death of Charlie Ternan, a college student who was sold fake Percocets online that was later found to be made out of fentanyl.
It only takes one pill to cause a fatal overdose. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, seven out of 10 pills seized were laced with potentially lethal dose fentanyl.
“The best way to get it out into the community is by going out into the community,” James Pfeiffer, Narcare’s faculty advisor and professor of anthropology and global health at UW, said.
Pfieffer explained that having an institutional-based approach is important, however, it can only do so much as it requires individuals to visit clinics during an emergency, where people can have access to life saving naloxone.
“Narcan should be more easily available to young people than fentanyl,” Pfeiffer said.
On Feb. 27, the House voted unanimously for Senate Bill 5804 and Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill into law Mar. 19. The legislation requires all public, charter, and some tribal schools to have naloxone regardless of student body size. This bill was brought by Lake Washington High School students to the senate and backed by Sen. Patty Kuderer, who represents the 48th Legislative District.
Pfeiffer noted that with the formation of Narcare and the initiative that the students have been pushing the bill, should be taken as a light criticism to how much the government is involved with the opioid crisis.
A march toward community healing
During their first application as an RSO in 2023, UW declined Narcare’s application, Bansal explained that UW didn’t really see the need for an RSO to be only distributing naloxone. However, after expanding their scope of having local outreach and training, Narcare finally got their organization recognized by UW in April.
Bansal shared that spreading awareness and providing naloxone is not enough, and that’s why it’s also part of Narcare’s goal to educate and provide training within the campus and in the greater community.
“Our big goal is Narcan training,” Bansal said. “We want students to have access to Narcan, [but] we also think it's important that they know how to use it, how to recognize an overdose and prevent overdoses.”
Pfeiffer said that another community that could be stimulated and get involved with naloxone training are work places, where employees are educated and made aware of what should be done during an opioid overdose.
Despite being a newly founded organization, Bansal shared how they are already seeing change happening at UW and recognize the role of each community member into making their advocacy come to life and he hopes to see this proliferate more across the nation.
But Bansal explained that the mission doesn’t stop there, elaborating that there are still things that need to be addressed. He also hopes to shift the way the public perceives the opioid crisis.
“I want to see a future where substance abuse is treated more as a health issue than as a moral failing,” Bansal said. ”I want the stigma around that erased. We know that treating it as a health issue and approaching it through methods like harm reduction are effective.”
Clement has expressed that he wants to make people feel that Narcare is in solidarity with them tackling the opioid crisis. He also shared that he wants people to know that there is a community that wants to solve this public health crisis.
“I think just being able to find that community and that doing work together is really important,” Clement said. “It gives you hope and it gives you something to look forward to… that you can do some work to address the crisis, which I think is pretty empowering.”
More information about Narcare can be found online.
Reach reporter Juan Jocom at news@uwdaily.com. X: @JocomJuan
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