Drug overdose is the top killer of young adults — and is a problem on college campuses, too, though it often goes unreported. One mother wants to make sure narcan is easy to get in college dorms.
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Drug overdose is the top killer of young adults, and it’s a problem on college campuses, though it’s often unreported. In a two-part series, NPR’s Yuki Noguchi reports on the challenges and the solutions that some colleges and students are adopting amid the rising threat.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: When I first met Monica Vera Schubert, she spoke of a long struggle getting insurance to cover her son Bobby’s addiction treatment. They’d finally prevailed, and he’d gotten sober. Vera Schubert, a single mom, was immensely grateful.
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MONICA VERA SCHUBERT: Because my son is alive. I appreciate every moment I have with him. And I always tell him, Bobby, I’m so proud of you. I’m so proud of you. And he goes, Mom, I’m proud of you. He’s a wonderful kid.
NOGUCHI: That was four years ago. Bobby went on to resume his studies. He got into his dream school, UCLA. He joined his activist mom, making videos warning of the prescription drug abuse that had entrapped him.
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BOBBY SCHUBERT: I can say I love you to my mom now. You know, I used not be able to say that – at least look her in the eye and say that.
NOGUCHI: This spring, Monica Vera Schubert reached out again. Bobby had relapsed. Then on April 12, a roommate found him slumped over his desk in his dorm. His mother says he’d taken fake Xanax, likely laced with fentanyl. Bobby Schubert was 29. That devastating night, his mother wailed as officials drove off with her son’s body. She felt shunned, she says. No one from UCLA, the police or medical examiner spoke to or consoled her.
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VERA SCHUBERT: (Crying) My son passed away there in the dorms on the university, and nobody wants to say anything.
NOGUCHI: In the weeks that followed, Vera Schubert’s grief turned to torment.
VERA SCHUBERT: So the dorm that my son is at, was there a Narcan there? No.
NOGUCHI: Narcan, a brand of the medication naloxone, can fully reverse opioid overdose if administered quickly, often as a nasal spray. California’s Campus Opioid Safety Act took effect last year. It requires most state and community colleges to provide education and free naloxone to students. UCLA says it’s compliant. Nevertheless, Monica Vera Schubert says in the 10 minutes it took paramedics to arrive after her son Bobby was found, no one near him had access to naloxone.
VERA SCHUBERT: For 10 minutes, maybe more, my son just laid there. There’s no Narcan. He just laid there. Would he still be here? Maybe.
NOGUCHI: The Schubert’s tragedy speaks to the need for greater public health response to overdoses that are not only increasing but affecting a broader range of people, many of whom may not even realize they’re ingesting opioids. Fentanyl comes pressed in pills resembling those that treat anxiety or ADHD, for example. It can be mixed invisibly into drugs like cocaine. That’s making casual or even inadvertent drug use even more lethal, and the younger generation bears scars from losing friends or witnessing overdoses. Yet public health advocates say too few college campuses have specific overdose prevention plans, either through mandatory training, naloxone distribution or kits that test drugs for the presence of fentanyl. Christina Freibott says a big reason for that lack of action is a lack of data. Freibott, a researcher at Boston University, says colleges often don’t know how many overdoses occur on campus or even when students die of overdose.
CHRISTINA FREIBOTT: There’s nothing that tracks specifically college campuses. They are not always aware of the cause of student death if it was an overdose or something else.
NOGUCHI: Medical privacy often shields that information, and even if students are revived from an overdose, students are unlikely to report such incidents to the school. Susan Murphy says as a result, college administrators remain willfully blind.
SUSAN MURPHY: That lack of reporting data allows people to continue to put blinders on. Of course, you don’t think it’s a problem until you have to watch them put a student in a body bag.
NOGUCHI: Which Murphy herself had to do when she was assistant dean of the pharmacy school at the University of Charleston in South Carolina. That loss and others prompted her to leave academia five years ago to head the Drug Intervention Institute, which promotes overdose prevention training and provides kits with videos to hang on the walls of schools or buses. Naloxone itself is inexpensive and harmless. It has no effect on anyone not overdosing. But Murphy says college leaders often worry that making naloxone very visible on campus might tarnish their image. What will prospective parents think? Does it appear to condone drug use? Murphy says some schools understand the urgency, including all colleges in her home state of West Virginia.
MURPHY: We had some really brave college presidents who said, I don’t care what the perception is; this has to happen. It’s a scary time to be a young person, I think. It’s a scary time to be a parent, for sure.
NOGUCHI: Monica Vera Schubert, the grief-stricken mother, says she thinks naloxone belongs on every floor of every residence hall. She met with school officials, she says, one of whom told her of three other known overdose deaths on UCLA’s campus over the years.
VERA SCHUBERT: Dead from an overdose? Well, did you guys make any reform, any policy changes? She goes, no. From that first student, there should have been a change, and my son might still be alive if there were changes made, if there was new policy.
NOGUCHI: UCLA declined an interview, but in an emailed statement, it said its various overdose outreach programs include providing free naloxone and fentanyl test kits in more than 20 campus locations, including residence halls. The school also plans to expand that availability before the new school year begins this month. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
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