PHOENIX — The Arizona Department of Education announced the 'School Training Overdose Preparedness and Intelligence Taskforce' or ‘STOP-IT’ in a news conference Tuesday morning.
The new task force is aimed at preventing drug use among teens. Superintendent Tom Horne said they’re looking at ways to distribute opioid reversal drug, Narcan or Naloxone, in schools.
Horne mentioned fentanyl as a big issue in general with Arizona being a border state, adding that students can and have gotten their hands on it somehow.
The new task force will partner with health officials such as the Mayo Clinic and Terros Health among other educational leaders to help figure out ways to effectively educate students and help them listen to all the warnings.
“They're not going to us. They're going to social influencers, so that might be part of this campaign. Identifying groups or individuals that are in their world that can relay this message and probably much more impactful than we can. So we'll be exploring there,” said Dr. Holly Geyer with the Mayo Clinic.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, in 2023, among kids 17 and younger, there were 132 non-fatal opioid overdoses. There were 26 overdose deaths. This is marginally lower than the year before.
“Sadly, overdoses are a reality for school-age children throughout Arizona. Fentanyl can kill students within minutes of an overdose. It is vitally important that all schools have Narcan available to save student lives if it should happen on campus,” Horne said.
The logistics of how schools could pay for the opioid reversal drug is still up in the air. Horne said they could discuss those in their task force meetings, which should begin meeting at the end of this month.
The Arizona Department of Education said it did not have a timeline on when any recommendations would be given.
Watch the news conference in the player below:
