SEQUIM — Community leaders are considering placing Naloxone — commonly known by brand name Narcan — in distribution boxes around Sequim to help reverse effects from opioid overdoses.
City council member Dan Butler proposed Sept. 9 that Sequim enter into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Clallam County Health and Human Services Department’s harm reduction program to make Narcan available on city property recommended by first responders.
Council members voted 6-0, with mayor Brandon Janisse excused, for staff to draft an MOU with the county.
Butler told council members the MOU is about addressing a gap where vulnerable people may not call emergency services for an overdose. He compared distributing Naloxone to defibrillators found in the community.
“You don’t know when the next person is going to drop from a heart attack, but we’re glad it’s there,” he said.
According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, “Naloxone is a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose” and “an antagonist … that it attaches to opioid receptors and reverses and blocks the effects of other opioids.”
It’s given through a nasal spray or injected into a muscle, under the skin or in the veins.
“Naloxone can quickly restore normal breathing to a person if their breathing has slowed or stopped because of an opioid overdose,” the DEA said.
Council members agreed that providing Naloxone is important but asked for first responders to recommend the best locations, and for more details on who will pay for the supplies, oversee restocking boxes and maintain distribution boxes.
Butler said the effort likely will start small with a few sites in Sequim and grow as needed, with efforts to educate residents on Naloxone.
Trinity United Methodist Church staff said they plan to offer Naloxone at its free food pantry at a later date. Butler said St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is considering making it available in its pantry, too.
Butler added that entities receiving Naloxone through the county would enter into an MOU as it would be distributed on private property.
Council member Kathy Downer, a city liaison to the Clallam Transit board of directors, also has asked its board to discuss offering Naloxone in a distribution box at the Sequim Transit Center. The transit board has approved one at the Gateway Transit Center in Port Angeles, she said.
Overdoses
Clallam County’s opioid overdoses per 10,000 residents is among the highest in Washington counties. Butler said he wanted to see if Sequim could expand on what the county is trying to do with Naloxone distribution.
“We’re addressing (the gap of people who overdose without Naloxone available), and if you look at (the Clallam County coroner’s) data, the demographic is sobering as 50-plus is the majority,” he said.
Siri Forsman-Sims, the county’s harm reduction program coordinator, said the Sequim area with the 98382 Zip code accounts for about 30 percent of all opioid overdoses in Clallam County in recent years, ranging from teenagers to an 82-year-old. She said it can take up to eight months to confirm an overdose death in the county’s system, and where people are logged as overdosing is where they live, not where they overdose.
Clallam County Coroner’s data show about 10 percent of overdoses (20) occurred in Sequim from 2015-2023.
Of the county’s totals, a majority of overdoses (59) from 2015 to this June occurred in the 50- to 59-year-old range, while the next highest total (46) was the 40-49 age range. There were 41 overdoses for ages 30-39 and 31 overdoses for those 60-69.
“It’s people of all ages,” Butler said. “This isn’t just a youth issue.”
Forsman-Sims said the overdoses could be someone using illicit drugs or being confused by the amount of opiate prescription drugs they’re taking.
“We’re trying to get it into the hands of the people who might overdose,” she said.
Fentanyl is cheap, Forsman-Sims said, and it’s being cut with methamphetamine and other drugs, and “it’s reeking havoc on our folks.”
Butler said opiates are “meant to help you forget about pain” and “Narcan can go into the brain, boot out the opioid and last for up to 90 minutes.”
He and Forsman-Sims said that, because of the potency of certain opioids, it may require two to three doses of Narcan to revive people.
People can be combative when they come out of an overdose, Sequim deputy police chief John Southard said.
Placement
Forsman-Sims said her program is responsible for seven distribution boxes in Port Angeles and the West End that offer Naloxone with about 300 boxes distributed monthly, or 600 doses.
Some locations were by request, such as at the Clallam Bay Fire Department, Peninsula College and Clallam County Health and Human Service buildings. Other locations include the Mariposa House in Forks, Serenity House in Port Angeles and at Safeway across from the Clallam County courthouse in Port Angeles.
She said the most active distribution box is the Health and Human Services building on East Third Street in Port Angeles.
Another distribution box is set for the Maloney Heights apartments and the Gateway Transit Center.
Some boxes carry other supplies, such as COVID-19 tests and fentanyl test strips along with Naloxone.
The county has switched from offering Narcan to RiVive, as its made by Harm Reduction Therapeutics, a nonprofit pharmaceutical company.
“The whole purpose is to put it in the hands of someone who might overdose; grandma and grandpa in Sunland or someone living on the street,” Forsman-Sims said.
“The approach from the state is to get into the hands least likely to have access to it, the most needy folks out there.”
She added that data from first responders should drive placement, and they want distribution boxes in well-lit places so they won’t be damaged.
Clallam County Fire District 3 Chief Justin Grider said offering Naloxone will definitely help as it’s “value added.”
As they do with other medication, staffers record when Naloxone is used, Grider said, and firefighters/paramedics are working with Sequim Police to gather data and recommend locations.
Grider said overdoses are not a frequent call for the fire district, and that Sequim likely sees more accidental overdoses from certain medications rather than illicit drugs due to the age of Sequim’s population.
Southard said Sequim police officers do not carry Naloxone as the fire district responds to those calls. However, they assist when needed.
For more about the Harm Reduction Center, 325 1/2 W. Second St., Port Angeles, call 360-565-2671, or visit clallamcountywa.gov/660/Harm-Reduction-Health-Center.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at matthew.nash@sequimgazette.com.
