The Cambria County Drug Coalition partnered with Highlands Health, Behavioral Health of Cambria County and Cambria County Drug and Alcohol Program on Thursday, in order to teach members of our community how to administer the life-saving medication Naloxone or commonly known by its brand "Narcan", to those who have suffered an overdose.

Narcan comes in the form of a nasal spray and is an easy and effective way to reverse the effects of a drug overdose. Virtually anyone can administer it.

Cambria county has seen a spike in overdose deaths within the last year with 94 people dying as a result and organizations have been focusing on harm reduction in order to bring those numbers down.

“We had previously had a high point of overdose deaths in 2016 and we were on a steady decline," said Natalie Kauffman, executive director of the Cambria County Drug Coalition. "Since then, unfortunately in 2021 due to Covid as well as due to the infiltration of fentanyl into the drug supply we hit another high point in 2021."

Kauffman also highlights the fact that not all overdoses stem from addictive usage.

"Let’s not forget that opioids are being prescribed," said Kauffman. "It’s very easy whenever you’re taking an opioid for pain management to forget how many you have taken. You might’ve taken an extra one and accidentally overdose. It’s also important for those that are living in the grip of substance use disorder. The only thing that Narcan enables is breath, and as long as there’s breath, there’s hope of recovery."

Narcan administration is not the only means of harm reduction when it comes to opioid addiction. Highlands Health executive director, Rosalie Danchanko, spoke about the importance of their harm reduction program at their clinic.

“Our harm reduction program is a tool," said Danchanko. "An evidence based tool to assist the addict where they are. If they’re going to take drugs, then we want to make sure they have clean needles. If they’re going to take drugs , we wanna look at their injection sites to see if perhaps there’s any abscesses. We want to test them because the obvious rate of HIV, and hepatitis C, and STDs is high among those who use drugs. The good thing about harm reduction is that we teach them about Narcan and we give them the supplies that help them be safe , and the other good part about our program is that 30% of them, through our peer counselling, and our support, have gone on to recovery options.

The coalition will be hosting Narcan distribution events this Saturday in the Cambria County Academic Center parking lot and in Portage EMS from 10am to 2pm. All of these actions were made possible as a result of a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.