Teen Overdose Tragedy Prompts LA Schools To Get OD Reversal Drug

LOS ANGELES, CA — A drug to reverse overdoses will now be stocked at K-12 campuses within the Los Angeles Unified School District, officials announced a week after a student was found dead in a Bernstein High School bathroom.

The drastic move to provide the medication across more than 1,400 schools marks a significant step for the nation's second-largest school district toward addressing the dangers of fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 80-100 times more powerful than morphine.

“We have an urgent crisis on our hands,” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said.

Along with stockpiling naloxone or "Narcan," the district is implementing a safety task force, peer-to-peer counseling, and more under its newly expanded anti-drug strategy, which will affect thousands of students in elementary, middle and high school.

"Research shows that the availability of naloxone along with overdose education is effective at decreasing overdoses and death–and will save lives," Carvalho said. "We will do everything in our power to ensure that not another student in our community is a victim to the growing opioid epidemic. Keeping students safe and healthy remains our highest priority."

The urgent move comes the week after two students of different high schools across the district died of overdoses. At least nine students overdosed from pills believed to have contained fentanyl across several campuses in recent weeks. Seven incidents were linked to Bernstein High School and Hollywood High School campuses.

Dr. Brian Hurley of the Los Angeles County Health Department described the situation as the "worst overdose epidemic in the United States history and the worst overdose epidemic in Los Angeles County history," he told the LA Times.

Hurley is an addiction psychiatrist and the medical director of the county health department’s division of substance abuse prevention.

“And a lot of that is attributable to this high potency opioid fentanyl that’s found its way into illicitly manufactured pills and to other drugs of abuse,” he said.

Melanie Ramos, 15, died Sept. 13 in a school bathroom at Bernstein High after taking a pill that she bought from another student. Her friend was also hospitalized. The school was open that night for soccer and volleyball games, authorities said.

Earlier that day, paramedics responded to separate calls reporting possible overdoses of two teens in the area of Lexington Park, less than a half-mile from Bernstein High, and a cluster of other schools. The teens are believed to have been students at the schools.

Police last week arrested two boys, ages 15 and 16, in connection with Ramos’ death and other drug sales in the area. The younger boy was held on suspicion of manslaughter, police said.

Los Angeles police Chief Michel Moore said the teens arrested were “simply pawns that are being used by adults and by drug trade organizations,” and that authorities were working to find the supplier.

Another student, of STEM Academy of Hollywood, was found unconscious by his mother Saturday in their Hollywood home. The academy is one of three schools located on the Bernstein High School campus. The boy was treated at a hospital and is expected to survive, officials said.

"The opioid epidemic is a community crisis, and today Los Angeles Unified is taking concrete action to protect our students — both by making naloxone readily available and through proactive education and support," Board President Kelly Gonez said.

Naloxone will be provided at no cost to the district, which has garnered support from the county health department, the Los Angeles Trust for Children's Health and Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

About 300 packages, each containing two doses, will be distributed first to high schools within the district over the next two weeks. Ahead of their delivery, the district said it is working to train and educate nurses, wellness staff and volunteers to administer the drug.

California law allows K-12 schools to stockpile and administer naloxone but it isn't mandatory. Michigan has a similar policy.

Alternatively, New York State offers four free doses of the drug to every high school but New York City schools are not required to keep it in stock, a district spokesman told The Times.

Rhode Island is the only state to require all schools to have the overdose drug on hand. It can be administered there by any trained nurse or teacher, The Times reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.