This letter, by Alexander Klee, 16, of Amity Regional Excessive Faculty in Woodbridge, Conn., is likely one of the High 9 winners of The Studying Community’s Pupil Open Letter Contest, for which we obtained 8,065 entries. Yow will discover the work of all of the winners, as we publish them, right here.
Expensive Governor Lamont,
From reducing taxes for working households, to investing in clear power, to main our Covid-19 response, you’ve got made lasting and constructive change in Connecticut. This isn’t, nevertheless, a time to relaxation. You should take one other take a look at the opioid overdose epidemic in our state.
Whereas the judicial system has handled the Sacklers, the impression of opioids continues to be sending waves of loss by means of our communities. In 2022, 1,348 of your constituents died of an opioid overdose, in accordance with knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System. With stronger opioids like fentanyl in our unlawful drug provide, these unintended deaths may proceed to occur to anybody, wherever, at any time.
In your protection, Connecticut has finished quite a bit to fight this public well being epidemic, like creating the Naloxone + Opioid Response App and growing entry to fentanyl take a look at strips. Nevertheless, I firmly imagine that your administration’s response efforts missed the mark by ignoring highschool college students.
In our present well being curriculum, there may be intensive training on illicit substances, their classifications and their impression on our our bodies. The Connecticut Basic Statutes require the Division of Schooling to incorporate these topics in our curriculum, however they don’t go so far as to mandate instruction on one of many biggest instruments obtainable to fight the opioid disaster: Naloxone.
Naloxone is a protected, efficient and lifesaving medication that may reverse an opioid overdose when given in time, per The New York Occasions. There’s room in our well being curriculum to show college students how you can acknowledge and reverse an opioid overdose. If academics are given acceptable supplies and help, each highschool pupil in Connecticut may be taught these essential expertise.
I strongly urge you to submit a governor’s invoice to the Connecticut Basic Meeting to mandate training in our public excessive faculties on opioid overdose recognition and reversal.
This curriculum mandate is the puzzle piece lacking from our well being training, and isn’t with out precedent — Maine enacted comparable laws in 2023. In fact, we must always know that addictive substances are dangerous, however realizing what an opioid overdose seems to be like, and how you can reverse it, is what college students have to be part of the answer.
Whereas college students and fogeys usually fear that educating about Naloxone will encourage drug use, the information really reveals in any other case. A examine revealed in 2023 discovered that Naloxone entry legal guidelines are usually not related to a rise in substance use amongst adolescents.
Highschool ought to give us the instruments essential for all times exterior of public training. After commencement, high-risk conduct drastically will increase, and it’s crucial we’ve the data to forestall fatalities. Governor Lamont, you’ll be able to guarantee we obtain this significant instruction, which can empower us to struggle the opioid overdose epidemic and save lives.
