Bucks County Parents Concerned, NARCAN To Be Available To Middle School Students
WARMINSTER, Pa. (CBS) -- For Cathy Messina of Warminster, it's something she wrestles with daily...if only there was naloxone when her son David, in 2014, was overdosing.
"They all think their invincible," Messina said. David Messina, an Archbishop Wood graduate, died at 21.
His brother was also in the throws of an overdose at the same time and survived. The overdoses happened at the family home in Warminster.
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Messina says the introduction of naloxone, or NARCAN, in middle and high schools across Buck County is an important step. "We've used it in Bensalem over 48 times," Fred Harran, Bensalem Director of Public Safety, said.
He says 80 percent of crime in his township can be traced back to substance abuse and addiction.
The drug that is capable of reversing an overdose, would be administered by a school nurse or police officers assigned to schools. It will vary depending on the district.
Harran thinks it's a sad commentary.
"In our middle schools and high schools, specifically that we have to put this type of anti-venom so to speak, as if we have snakes running loose in our schools and the kids were being bitten left and right," Harren said.
Some Bucks County parents were alarmed to hear the drug would possibly be available to middle schoolers.
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"But at the same time, should I be talking. Where is the age that's appropriate to speak to your kids about this," Devin Thyberg said.
But Cathy Messina says she would have done anything to help her son David have a second shot at life.
