“It’s not just for people who use substances, but really anybody; we want to stress carrying Narcan, as we can attribute a lot of our decline in overdose fatalities ... to more and more people carrying Narcan and more and more people who might not use substances or people who might not know somebody who uses substances, just the everyday person carrying that Narcan, because you never know when you’re going to need it,” Clark said.
Clark County has seen a reduction in opioid overdose deaths in the past few years, going from 79 in 2021, to 61 in 2022, 52 in 2023 and 27 in 2024, according to health department data.
This decrease is in part due to more people knowing how to use and carrying naloxone and a slightly decreased stigma, Clark said. He also pointed to harm reduction programs, like Clark County’s One2One program, which meets three times a week to exchange used syringes for clean ones as well as fentanyl and other test strips.
Test strips for fentanyl, xylazine, nitazenes and benzodiazepine are no longer considered drug paraphernalia in Ohio, allowing anyone who uses drugs to test them and ensure they aren’t taking any that were unintended, Clark said.
The goal of harm reduction is to reduce overdose fatalities and encourage people who use drugs to seek rehabilitative treatment. People who come in ready for rehabilitation are “pretty much immediately” connected to the necessary services, Deputy Health Commissioner Gracie Hemphill said. The practice is an evidence-based way to prevent overdose deaths.
“Yes, we provide clean supplies but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a very small portion of what we do at the harm reduction; it’s really about those wraparound services making it a one-stop shop for people to come in and get the assistance that they need so that ultimately when they’re ready to go to treatment, everything’s in place,” Hemphill said.
Services like testing for bloodborne diseases are also available through the One2One program.
Most people participate in harm reduction daily, Clark said, by putting on a seatbelt before driving or using sunscreen before going out on a sunny day.
Naloxone, often known by the brand name Narcan, is a nasal spray that reverses an opioid overdose. During an opioid overdose, the opioid attaches to receptors in the brain, stopping a person from breathing, Clark said. Naloxone removes those attachments and enables a person to breathe again, he said.
A person experiencing an overdose may quit breathing or may have a “gargling snore” sound while breathing, Clark said. Their fingertips may turn bluish purple.
Each Naloxone box has two doses, one for each nostril, and it is recommended to wait two to three minutes between each dose to allow time for the treatment to work. Using more naloxone than necessary or on someone not having an overdose isn’t harmful, but for someone who overdosed it can make the withdrawal worse, Clark said.
Before administering naloxone, people should call 911, Hemphill said. The treatment works for 30 to 90 minutes and while effective, it does not remove the opioids from a person’s system and they could overdose again later, Clark said.
Naloxone can be disorienting for someone who overdosed, and the person may wake up agitated and confused, with the last thing they remember being using a substance before they wake up no longer feeling the drug’s effects, Clark said.
The vending machine, provided by ODH, is stocked by McKinley Hall, which gets naloxone through the Ohio Department of Health’s Project DAWN. The machine is open to use at the Salvation Army, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Closed noon to 1 p.m.).
“The overdose fatalities are tending down and we want to do everything in our power to keep that trend going,” Hemphill said. “Death prevention and harm reduction is public health, so that’s why we continue to push naloxone and harm reduction services and prevention efforts as much as we can.”
More to learn
The One2One program holds three meetings per week — Mondays from 5-8 p.m. at the Southern Village clinic at 1209-3 Sunset Ave., Wednesdays from 1-4 p.m. on the second floor of the Springfield Soup Kitchen at 830 W. Main St., and Thursdays from 3-7 p.m. at the Southern Village clinic.
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