In January 2016, as a response to the opioid crisis, the Board of Education, in a 7-1 vote, approved the use of Narcan kits in all Nashua public schools.

As a result, the drug is now stocked in all public schools in the city. Narcan is an opioid antidote that can stop or reverse the effects of opioid overdose. The drug works against all opioids such as morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone and heroin.

All administrators and nurses at Nashua schools have been trained to administer the potentially life-saving drug in the event of an overdose.

School nurse Annamaria Delk likened the use of Narcan to the stocking of EpiPens. "I hope we don’t have to use the drug, but it is better to be prepared and to not use it than to need it and not have it on hand."

In a Nashua Telegraph interview earlier this year, Police Chief Andrew Lavoie said the primary reason for the increase in fatal overdoses is fentanyl, a highly powerful heroin additive.

Often, heroin users are unaware that heroin is laced with fentanyl or is even pure fentanyl, which often leads to serious, unanticipated issues. In most instances, Narcan will still work even if the heroin has been laced with fentanyl.

"There have been over 30 suspected instances of drug usage in the school itself since the school started," Delk said. The "vast majority of cases exhibited symptoms similar to that of marijuana usage."

The Nashua school policy states that nurses must first ask for permission from the student before treating them. Otherwise, they are helpless to assist the person inebriated by the drugs.

After the suspected drug usage, nurses record the information about the student. However, the nurses cannot identify the drug used because they aren’t in the possession of blood- or urine-testing equipment.

After the suspected drug incident, an administrator contacts the parent/guardian of the student and encourages them to pursue counseling for the student. Students are encourage to go to counseling with a promise of a lighter punishment for the infraction.

Nashua South Principal Keith Richard said, "We haven’t noticed a significant uptick in the amount of cases involving drug use this year, but we have the same concerns about the general opioid crisis that much of the city has."

Rohan Kumar is a freshman at Nashua High School South.

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