Editorial: Naloxone in high schools could save kids' lives

Opioid addiction doesn’t care how much money you make or where you live. It doesn’t respect ethnicity or skin color or political party.

It does not draw a line at age.

The addiction epidemic that has washed over the United States like a wave in the last decades has hit without discrimination. It does not stop at school doors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, opioids have made themselves quite comfortable in our high schools. Data shows 15% of students have used drugs, including heroin and cocaine, while 14% have misused prescription opioids.

This makes a bill introduced in the Pennsylvania Senate proactive. The proposal would require high schools to have naloxone — an opioid antagonist that can counteract the effects of narcotics — on hand.

Additionally, someone trained in the use of the medication would need to be present daily.

Widespread availability of naloxone is credited by many for lowering the number of overdose deaths. A 2024 study in the American Journal of Public Health noted naloxone was not used in 70% of fatal overdoses in those 10 to 19 years old. That was despite another person being on hand 67% of the time.

That speaks of a need that could be filled by making naloxone available where teenagers spend much of their time.

It also partners well with another bill introduced this year that would require schools to have automated external defibrillators at school and for school sporting events.

Both bills mandate the presence of something that could save lives. Both bills look at a simple change that could make a dramatic difference.

And both bills advocate for codifying something many schools are already doing.

In 2015, then-Gov. Tom Wolf ordered that Pennsylvania schools be allowed to have naloxone available. Since then, many school districts, including Freeport Area, Mt. Lebanon, Plum Borough and Yough, have kept it in stock.

“Thankfully, we have never had to administer it,” Freeport Superintendent Ian Magness said.

That is good, but like a fire extinguisher, naloxone ideally should be the safety net you have but never need.

The state requires schools to do so many things. Keeping naloxone in the nurse’s office for emergencies doesn’t seem like a big ask because an overdose doesn’t care if a kid is just in high school.