The University of Rhode Island’s Community First Responder Program is trying to continue the decline in opioid overdose death rates, which RI.gov said decreased by 7.3% from 2022 to 2023.
The CFRP is dedicated to informing and equipping communities throughout New England so they can combat opioid misuse and overdose effectively, according to their website . URI pharmacy professor Anita Jacobson is the director and founder of the program.
“We did have a slight decline in opioid overdose deaths in 2023, however we still aren’t where we would want to be unfortunately,” Jacobson said. “We still have 400 Rhode Islanders losing their life each year. That’s about one per day on average.”
To further mitigate overdose deaths, Jacobson’s program distributes Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, in addition to fentanyl test strips, safer smoking and safer sniffing kits.
Naloxone is an opioid antagonist that goes into the central nervous system of the brain and removes the opioids from the receptors, creating a protective barrier for 30 to 90 minutes, according to Jacobson. Naloxone is intended to reverse the effects of opioids such as fentanyl, oxycontin, vicodin and many others.
If students want to receive access to Naloxone, they can take either an asynchronous training course or an in-person seminar through the CFRP, which can be found on their website . The interactive asynchronous course takes about 10 minutes and allows URI students to access Naloxone at Morrill Hall.
“We [the state] distribute[s] over 55,000 kits per year in Rhode Island,” Jacobson said. “We are trying to achieve something called Naloxone saturation where everyone who might possibly witness an overdose has access to Naloxone and knows how to use it.”
Jen Hodshon, the director of URI Health Services, said there are many methods that Health Services uses for opioid and general drug-use mitigation on campus. One of these is a health and wellness vending machine that was installed by Health Services in collaboration with the URI Department of Pharmacy.
This vending machine is located on the first floor of the Robert L. Carothers Library in the 24-hour room. The machine contains Naloxone, fentanyl test strips and other products to assist students dealing with health and wellness issues.
Health Services offers other programs for opioid users according to Arielle Sherman, a licensed therapist at URI Health Services. These include counseling for drug users and referrals to institutions that aid in opioid use disorder such as Butler Hospital.
Rhode Island was given the State Opioid Response grant on Sept. 6, which allocates $11.6 million to the state over the next three years. Rhode Island will receive this money each year from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to put toward opioid mitigation programs and overdose prevention.
The grant changes slightly each time it’s given, based on the number of overdose deaths and opioid prevention programs in need.
“SOR grants are used for community programs and recovery,” Jacobson said. “I think they should be used more for recovery housing because recovery housing is a big need. We find that detox doesn’t work. People need to go into residential treatment for addiction sometimes for months and sometimes even longer.”
Jacobson said she is happy to see the trend of opioid overdoses going down in the state, but thinks some improvements could be made to make the state’s opioid response programs better.
“Another step is to remove barriers to treatment, like barriers to Methadone – those need to be broken down,” Jacobson said. “These are old antiquated systems that were put in place by Richard Nixon, why do we still have these at this point?”
Methadone is a medication used to treat Opioid Use Disorder.
While Jacobson and members of URI Health Services still think work needs to be done, there is optimism about the lowering overdose rate in Rhode Island, according to Jacobson.
To find out more about the Community First Responder program, students can visit the program’s website .