Couple Gives Out Opiate Reversal Spray At Sea.Hear.Now This Weekend

ASBURY PARK, NJ — This Saturday and Sunday, thousands of people will descend on Asbury Park for the Sea.Hear.Now music festival, where Trey Anastasio Band, Norah Jones, 311, Kool and the Gang and The Black Crowes will all perform.

Tickets have been sold out for weeks, and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will take the stage Sunday in a highly-anticipated homecoming performance on the beach in Asbury Park.

And husband-wife team William Perry and Ingela Travers-Hayward, from Ohio, will be among the throngs, dispersing free doses of Kloxxado to the crowd. Kloxxado is a nasal spray that is FDA-approved for emergency treatment of opioid overdose.

The couple run a non-profit called This Must Be the Place (both are big Talking Heads fans), where they travel to concerts and music festivals across the nation, giving out opiate reversal drugs and educating attendees about the dangers of fentanyl.

Perry said they got approval beforehand from the NJ Department of Health to walk among the crowds this weekend and hand out free supplies of Kloxxado. The state of New Jersey just announced Friday that all school districts can now keep naloxone in all NJ schools.

"Bruce is bringing in a larger crowd than normal for this festival, so we brought just over 2,000 doses of Kloxxado with us. And we typically don't go home with any," Perry told Patch. "Our attempt at any festival is to always get it to five percent of the crowd. So we are aiming to reach one in 20 people this weekend."

For Perry, it's personal: He beat an opioid addiction six years ago (he is six years sober) and is now a certified chemical dependency counselor. He started using heroin at the age of 14. He spent time in an Ohio prison for possession of a stolen car and burglary and saw two friends die from drug overdoses, according to this People magazine profile.

"Prison is a miserable place," said Perry, who started working on his college degree while in prison. "Some people get locked up, others get saved. I got saved."

Concerts and music festivals have long been associated with drug use. So far, Perry and his wife have gone to Bonnaroo, Burning Man and Lollapalooza giving out Kloxxado, Naloxone and similar drugs.

Some argue that opioid reversal drugs, which were just approved last year to be sold over the counter, can be seen as encouraging drug use. Perry responded:

"That is just the most absurd thing. It promotes people being able to stay alive. Having this on them reminds a young person of their actions. If someone has a dose of Kloxxado in their back pocket, and they have a friend who is thinking about using (drugs), they might say, 'Hey, you might want to stop and think about not using that.'"

Perry said he and his wife don't just hand out the nasal spray: They always train young people how to use Kloxxado and other drugs. That training actually serves as a passive way to educate young people about the dangers of drug use, he said.

"What we've seen is that when someone gets training on something like this, their chance of using a drug actually goes down. It's like they have an extra little reminder to be vigilant in this age of fentanyl. In America, we have 106,000 people each year die due to drug overdose. That number is just amazing."

The biggest concern today is fentanyl, said Perry.

"It's everywhere," he said. "About 80 percent of the cocaine seized by the DEA ends up testing positive for some trace amount of fentanyl. Nine out of 10 pills sold on the street end up have a trace amount of fentanyl in them. People are at risk who don't even know they are at risk to being exposed to fentanyl and opioids. The cross contamination is everywhere."

Since starting the nonprofit in 2022, the couple has distributed more than 85,400 doses of naloxone, and they estimate that by the end of 2024 they will have distributed another 50,000 doses this year alone.

A similar group called End Overdose distribute Kloxxado at events that include Insomniac Music Festivals and raves across the country.