Erie News Now has learned that you can now get free opioid overdose reversal kits from “vending machines” in the lobby of UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor on West 26th Street.
What looks like an old newspaper vending machine, instead has free boxes of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan or naloxone inside, and those kits could save the life of someone you know.
In Erie County in 2023, 95 people died from drug overdose, 79 of those deaths involved opioids.
We talked with Jessi Montie, program director for Addiction Medicine Services. "We know that this is not going away and we want to make sure that our community has easy access to this medication,” she said.
Since becoming part of the Pennsylvania overdose prevention program in January Safe Harbor has been able to distribute more than 600 free naloxone kits here in our area through all kinds of organizations and businesses, but 164 of them alone went out from the free dispensing machine in their lobby.
The dispenser also includes important information on how to use the medication and when. Montie said you have to recognize the signs that someone is about to stop breathing. "A person's skin will change color might be blue, shallow breathing, gurgling, you might notice their eyes are really pinpoint, so recognizing those signs you know using the naloxone as quickly as possible is going to be vital for saving someone's life,” she explained.
And Montie wants you to know that this reversal drug doesn’t only help those struggling with substance abuse. "We really want people to know that unintentional drug poisonings could happen and so this will reverse the effect of an opioid-related overdose."
There is a second vending machine like this one at Safe Harbor’s crisis center on West 12th Street in Erie which is open 24/7, and there’s a dispensing machine in Franklin, PA too.
Hopes are high that it will make a difference. "We hope it makes a dent…you know one life saved, is one life saved,” Jessi Montie said.
UPMC Western Behavioral Health at Safe Harbor also has tools for harm reduction, like fentanyl test strips where a drug user can determine if deadly fentanyl is mixed in with their drug of choice. And they have green deactivation and drug disposal kits so you can safely throw away any dangerous opioids you may have in your home.