Narcan vending machines, stocked with the overdose-reversing medication, are popping up all over the country, with the latest machines coming to Kansas and Pennsylvania.
Kansas’s first two machines were installed in February in Wichita and Hutchinson, 13 WIBW reported. Another is set to be placed in Johnson County, and more are headed for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Fentanyl overdose deaths across the nation are breaking records, with the rate breaching 112,000 for the first time in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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Wichita, a city of just under 400,000 people, did not have a major fentanyl problem until recently.
“Fentanyl deaths in the Wichita area tripled in 2020, going from 28 the previous year to 90,” the Wichita Beacon reported. “By 2021, the number of deaths nearly doubled on top of that, rising to 162. The final tally for 2022 stands at 192.”
Since 2018, more than 500 Wichita-area residents have died from what was a “nearly nonexistent threat before then.”
According to Kansas Recovery Network co-founder Seth Dewey, the Narcan vending machines will help combat this growing problem.
“It reduces overdose deaths, and that’s one of the main things that we try to accomplish by having naloxone readily available,” he told 13 WIBW.
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Amber Saale-Burger has lost four family members to fentanyl, with the most recent death being her daughter, Kaylee.
“There always been addiction; there’s always been experimentation. Kids are going to try things, and if they don’t know it’s super dangerous, like, it’s not smart to try things; it never has been, but now, that’s not even an option anymore,” said Saale-Burger, who is now a fentanyl awareness advocate.
She said she “didn’t know anything about the deadly drug until she began losing family members to it.”
“You don’t think it’s going to happen to you until it happens to you,” she told the local outlet.
Now, Saale-Burger raises money for “Save A Life Stations” — which provides harm-reduction kits containing Narcan, drug testing strips, safe disposal kits, and “informational resources such as Narcan administration training videos.”
“These are kind of the same idea as the vending machines, only there are no barriers here,” the activist wrote on GoFundMe. “The station will be placed outside. No one will ask you what you’re doing. No one to judge. Just grab the life-saving tool that you need and be on your way.”
Saale-Burger has already installed one in Topeka, the capital city of Kansas.
She is also an advocate for House Bill 2487, a piece of potential legislation that would provide “immunity from prosecution for certain drug crimes when persons seek or provide medical assistance related to the use of a controlled substance.”
The grieving mother celebrated the bill passing the state House.
“I was so afraid that it was going to die, but it is moving forward. This is such great news today,” she wrote on Facebook.
According to seven-time New York Times best-selling author Peter Schweizer, “our country is at war” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and organized criminal gangs in China who poison Americans with fentanyl.
“Our country is at war, and we need to wake up to the fact that we are at war, and war is being waged on us,” Schweizer warned during a Wednesday discussion with Mark Levin.
“Part of this is what China’s doing to us. The other part is why our leaders are letting them do it, and they’re not even calling them out. Gavin Newsom is a prime example of that,” he continued, explaining why powerful U.S. figures turn a blind eye while China kills Americans, as detailed in his latest book, Blood Money.
“Meanwhile, fentanyl deaths in California are up more than 1,200 percent since 2016,” the author said while criticizing California Gov. Newsom’s refusal to hold China accountable.
According to Levin, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans is an “absolutely crucial book.”