Washougal to stock schools with opioid overdose-reversal medication

School board OK’d new policy in October, will train staff to use naloxone

By Doug Flanagan
December 1, 2022 2:25 pm
News, Schools

Contributed photo courtesy Margaret McCarthy Unite! Washougal's Vitaly Turlac (left) and Lisa Bennett pose for a photograph during a "drug takeback event" on Saturday, Oct. 29, in Washougal.

Alexander Cook’s older brother, Daniel, died earlier this year from an opioid overdose. Cook, the youth engagement coordinator for Unite! Washougal, said he was devastated but had also been mourning the loss of his brother for a long time before Daniel’s actual death.

“It’s heartbreaking because (addiction) really changes people,” Cook said. “When people are using substances, you know how they are when they’re not, and they really do seem like different people when they’re on the substances. There was a sense of loss before he passed away. It was a heartbreaking sense of loss, a sense of helplessness, in a lot of ways, with wanting to be there, wanting to help, but not knowing how.”

Cook is now on a mission to help prevent other families from feeling that same sense of grief and helplessness. Through Unite! Washougal, a nonprofit group that works with local youth to help them make healthier choices and avoid misusing drugs and alcohol, Cook feels he is making a difference — especially now that Unite! Washougal has partnered with the Washougal School District to combat opioid abuse in Washougal’s schools.

Opioid abuse “is a big problem, and big problems require big solutions,” Unite! Washougal director Margaret McCarthy told the Washougal School Board in June. “They require all of us to work together. It’s about partnerships.”

The Washougal School Board approved a policy in October that allows the district to stock opioid overdose reversal medication at all Washougal schools and train staff to administer the medication.

“Four or five nurses had already been trained,” WSD assistant superintendent Aaron Hansen said. “Now we’re planning to have the nurses train other staff members. We’re identifying which staff members will receive the training and have the naloxone available just in case it is needed.”

Washougal School Board President Cory Chase took issue with the first draft of the new policy, which only included Washougal High School as a site for the opioid overdose-reversal medication, and said he believed the fast-acting overdose antidote drug should be stocked in all of the district’s schools.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re talking about this, but it’s reality,” Chase said.

The district now stocks naloxone, a medication that can reverse an overdose from opioids, including heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioid medications. Often given as a nasal spray, it can quickly reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids and restore normal breathing in a matter of minutes.

“Just in case something was to happen, we now have a product in all of our buildings that can save a life,” Hansen said. “If we get to a point where we need to use this medication because of a potentially life-threatening situation, we have it.”

The district has not had any students, staff or visitors on campus who were suspected of an opioid-related overdose at any of its schools, according to Les Brown, the district’s director of communications and technology.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Just two milligrams of fentanyl, which is equal to 10 to 15 grains of table salt, is considered a lethal dose and it remains “the deadliest drug threat facing this country,” according to a CDC news release.

“There are people who are just using a recreational drug for recreational purposes, and then there’s also the people who are using it as a coping strategy, a dependency,” Cook said. “I think what we’re really facing is this lack of understanding that someone can take something one day and then take it the next day, and it has a little more fentanyl in it than it did the day before, and it’s a lethal dose when it wasn’t the day before. Just because you were able to do it one day doesn’t mean you can do it safely the next day.”

Fentanyl-related deaths in Clark County tripled from 13 in 2019 to 39 in 2020, and then climbed again to 57 deaths in 2021, according to the Washington State Department of Health. Eleven Clark County youth ages 19 and younger died as a result of opioid overdose between 2016 and 2022, according to Clark County Public Health.

“You don’t have to work very hard to … see the impact this is having in communities in the state of Washington,” Hansen said. “When you see the graphs that show the impact, the change that has occurred in the last few years with opioid overdoses and deaths — it’s hitting close to home.”

Fentanyl may be added to illicit drugs during their production without the drug user’s knowledge.

“Anyone who uses powdered drugs or takes pills that were not given to them by a pharmacy should assume they contain fentanyl,” Alan Melnick, Clark County’s health officer and public health director, stated in a news release. “Drugs purchased online, from friends, or from regular dealers could be deadly. There’s no way to know how much fentanyl is in a drug or if it’s evenly distributed throughout the batch.”

Unite! Washougal has access to several national platforms, including the Washington State HealthCare Authority’s Starts With One campaign, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Opioid and Naloxone Education Program (ONE).

“And Margaret and I have been talking about what we can do as far as a meeting for our community to get some more information,” Hansen said, adding that district leaders also are working in Washougal schools to share information with students about the potential outcomes of abusing opioids and about making healthier choices.

“We’re helping our students deal with these types of situations, supporting them, and making them aware about the availability of fentanyl and what it could look like,” Hansen said.

‘I felt like there was almost nothing I could do’

Cook believes his brother may have suffered from undiagnosed schizophrenia and turned to opioids in an attempt to self-medicate.

“And as a result there was a substance-use disorder,” Cook said, adding that, despite his family’s attempts to help Daniel, his brother was never able to overcome his addiction.

His brother did attend a Narcotics Anonymous program earlier this year and was seemingly “on the path to getting better,” Cook said, but then Daniel “took a substance that was more potent than what his body was ready for. There was there no indication of attempting suicide. This is just a very unfortunate case. I know Narcan was administered, but maybe it wasn’t enough.”

Daniel was 34 years old when he died.

“I think, the beginning, there was a lot of judgment, not understanding the issue, making it feel like he needed to change, like he needed to decide for himself. At some point, I felt like there was almost nothing I could do, and I just had to wait for him to hit rock bottom,” Cook said. “As I learned more and went through this process more with him and talked more about how to deal with these issues, I realized maybe I was a little naive.”

The experience prompted Cook to pursue a career in youth drug prevention. Before joining Unite! Washougal, he worked as a national trainer for Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, a Virginia nonprofit organization dedicated to creating and maintaining drug-free communities around the world, and is now using that knowledge to help young people in east Clark County.

“Me not wanting that for other people is a huge, huge part (of my work),” Cook said. “A lot of what I do now is a way to sort of make me feel like I’m able to make a difference for somebody, even if it’s not my brother.”

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