We read with great interest an op-ed by Mariel Baez ’26: “Students, drugs, and Narcan: The future of harm prevention at Williams.” In our respective roles as the director for emergency management, assistant director for health education, and director of the Prevention, Education, and Advocacy in Community (PEACe) Office, we hope to offer additional insight into harm reduction and prevention at Williams, and to welcome Baez and others into the many opportunities for substance use prevention and harm reduction at the College.
First, naloxone (the generic name for Narcan) and naloxone training are already widely available to students, staff, and faculty on campus. The PEACe Office partners with Berkshire Harm Reduction (BHR) to bring the BHR Mobile Unit to campus on the first Tuesday of each month, and we advertise this through Daily Messages, postering, and the office’s Instagram (@williamskeEPHealthy). The mobile unit has naloxone, other overdose prevention and harm reduction supplies, sharps disposal services, and free and confidential STI testing and prevention information for students, staff, faculty, and community members. The Office of Emergency Management also regularly offers naloxone training through their CPR and automated external defibrillator (AED) training program, which has been provided to over 200 employees at the College and is a part of all CPR and AED classes. Amalio is also in the process of scheduling open classes for anyone on campus.
Baez is correct that access to sterile syringes for people who use injectable drugs, whether prescribed (for gender-affirming care, chronic illness, or substance use treatment, for example) or recreational, is critical. Safe sharps disposal is necessary for broader public health, as it prevents bloodborne pathogen transmission should someone be accidentally stuck with an improperly disposed syringe. Presently, sharps disposal is available through dropoff at the Health Center, a disposal box currently located in the Hopkins Hall basement on campus, or to the BHR mobile unit. If you do not have a medical sharps container, you can get one from the BHR van, or you can place used sharps in a thick, puncture-proof enclosed plastic container like a detergent bottle or milk jug.
It is important to note that naloxone is only effective in the case of opiate overdoses. So far in the 2023-24 academic year, there have been 11 medical transports and evaluations for substance use on campus, none of which involved opiates. In 2022-23, we had 14 for the entire year, and again, none were for opiates. Baez rightly notes that there is a critical need for both harm reduction and prevention efforts on campus, but our most urgent need is a broad view of substance use on campus. Data from our fall 2022 National College Health Assessment tells us that by far the most commonly used substance on campus is alcohol, followed by cannabis products, and then, with far less frequency, non-medical use of prescription stimulants, hallucinogens, non-medical use of sedatives or sleeping aids, cocaine, and non-medical use of prescription opiates.
Harm reduction keeps people who use drugs alive and as healthy as possible within their current level of use. Some of the other harm reduction work we do includes offering occasional Serve Smart training, which focuses on safe alcohol-serving practices for party hosts; Substance Use Discussion and Support (SUDS), a weekly meeting for anyone wanting to discuss their own relationship to substance use or broader campus culture; and individual meetings with students to establish individualized plans for changing substance use behavior.
Baez calls for Junior Advisors (JAs) to be trained in and supplied with naloxone. While our offices have been in discussion with the Dean’s Office and Housing and Residential Life about making training available to JAs, housing coordinators (HCs), and residential directors, we have so far not recommended this as a policy measure for several reasons. First, when we look at the effective administration of naloxone, it is very often the peers immediately nearby who are the most important first responders. It is no guarantee that a person who needs naloxone on campus will have timely access to their student residential life staff member. Second, instating a naloxone training and administration requirement as part of the JA and HC role would be a major restructuring of the expectations for those roles, necessitating the creation of policy and protocols like a reporting system for naloxone administration.
There is a student group already working with the PEACe and Campus Safety Services departments to increase access to naloxone via the AED and Stop the Bleed cabinets (currently located in Paresky Center, Lasell Gym, and the skating rink, and soon to be added to many other areas on campus), as well as indoor and outdoor Naloxboxes. We welcome any other students to join by contacting Assistant Director for Health Education Laini Sporbert at [email protected].
As a community, we need significantly more primary prevention opportunities, and our offices are eager to support them. We need to have broad conversations about the intersections of substance use and mental health on campus; the “work hard, play hard” mentality that Baez accurately describes in her piece and the social norms and policies that support it; data we’re beginning to accrue that suggests that many students arrive on campus as very infrequent or non-drinkers but sometimes progress to very high-risk drinking routines; and what policies, programs, and skill sets would be needed to interrupt and reverse that trend.
We look forward to future collaborations and hope to see you at the next Harm Reduction Day table (the first Tuesday of every month), SUDS meetings (Tuesdays at 6 p.m. in Paresky 212, and we will be adding new days and times very soon), or at an individual appointment (at the email above, or at (413) 597-3165).
Amalio Jusino is the director for emergency management for CSS. Laini Sporbert is the assistant director for health education. Meg Bossong ’05 is the director of the PEACe office.
