With several fentanyl-related overdoses recently, including a fatal overdose at Bernstein High School in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Unified School District is taking action.
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced Thursday that naloxone, also known as Narcan, will be made available at all K-12 schools in the coming weeks, LAUSD said in a press release.
“We have an urgent crisis on our hands,” Carvalho said. “Research shows that the availability of naloxone along with overdose education is effective at decreasing overdoses and death – and will save lives. We will do everything in our power to ensure that not another student in our community is a victim to the growing opioid epidemic.”
Authorities said at least seven local teens, including 15-year-old Melanie Ramos, who died at Bernstein High in Hollywood, have overdosed in the past month from pills believed to contain fentanyl.
The most recent overdose happened Saturday morning when a 15-year-old boy at STEM Academy of Hollywood located on the Bernstein campus was found unconscious by his mother in their Hollywood home.
He is expected to survive.