Eli Cahan
View all posts by Eli Cahan July 8, 2026
Drew Angerer/Getty Images Last August, a bunch of students from Seattle’s Garfield High went day-drinking. The party was pretty standard: outdoors, lots of jungle juice, a collective post-finals sigh. In an instant, though, things took a scary turn when a classmate was found unconscious. That’s when Rilan Springer — adorned with a handmade purple crown denoting that she was there to help anyone who needed, and armed with Narcan, a nasal-spray form of the opioid antidote naloxone — leaped into action. She administered the medication: one puff up a nostril, just like that. Minutes later, the teen was whisked away to a local medical tent for further treatment.
The reversal of fortune may have felt like a miracle, but it was no accident. It’s the entire raison d’etre of Garfield High’s Bulldogs Against Overdose student group. Max Zimbron Martinez, who served as the group’s president this past school year, says its creation was in part a recognition of the nationwide opioid crisis, and in part a response to what Garfield students, like teens in so many cities across the country, witness in their own community.
For example, the route to Zimbron Martinez’ favorite thrifting spot, the Salvation Army in Chinatown, where he sources overlooked, swagged old necklaces, takes him down a staircase where hunched-over people gather to share hits of fentanyl and other drugs. The proximity has helped him to view those struggling with addiction as “just people,” he says. “Living here, and seeing with my own eyes how harsh opiates and fentanyl are motivates the work I do. By distributing Narcan and educating ourselves, we can maybe prevent suffering.”
Max Zimbron Martinez, who served as president of his high school’s overdose prevention group, Bulldogs Against Overdose. Courtesy of Johan Liedgren Unfortunately, it’s not easy for young people across the country to access the kind of life-saving measures that were used at that party. That’s despite the fact that in the past decade, tens of thousands of Americans have died from opioid overdoses. Young people have been particularly impacted: Opioids are the leading killer of 19-to-24-year-olds in the U.S. today. (Historically, guns and car accidents have vied for that wretched title.)
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It’s also despite the fact that experts say the introduction of therapies like Narcan is one reason the opioid death toll in America actually has been falling since 2023. At the microscopic level, naloxone works by keeping opioids from binding to people’s cells, preventing the comas and respiratory collapse associated with overdoses. It can also be administered via intramuscular injection or by IV. Studies estimate that the medication could reduce overdose deaths in the United States by up to one-third; Narcan’s promise could be even greater in youth overdoses, which more commonly occur with people around who could help — if armed with the med.
But a morass of state prescribing rules, minor consent laws, Good Samaritan laws (which protect people from liability who jump in to administer help in an emergency), and educational practices have made getting therapies like Narcan in the hands of young people difficult. One recent study found that while 90 percent of school nurses said they had access to naloxone, over a third reported restrictions on who else could administer the medication, and only a small minority deputized students themselves to use it.
According to Sarah Bagley, pediatrician and medical director of one of the nation’s leading addiction clinics for teens at Boston University, some of the reluctance to discuss Narcan comes from an old-school way of thinking about drug education. “The thought is that because you’re teaching them [something related to] drugs, they’re going to start using them,” Bagley says, “[or] that they’re going to use drugs when they otherwise wouldn’t, because they have Narcan there.” But, she counters, “just because we don’t talk about things that are hard doesn’t mean they’re not happening.”
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A bipartisan coalition of senators is seeking to change the national landscape around naloxone. The School Access to Naloxone Act, introduced in January, would provide grant funding to schools to obtain the generic version of Narcan and train school personnel how to use it. The bill would also provide liability protections to those who use the therapy in good faith.
“Schools across the country are still facing real barriers to stocking and using naloxone — even though it is a proven, life-saving tool,” Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a lead co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “This needs to change immediately… Congress must step up and do more to protect our kids and grandkids.”
But while the bill remains in committee, students continue to face barriers accessing Narcan.
For one, there’s the issue of prescribing laws. In all 50 states, students can be prescribed and have the right to carry life-saving therapies like epinephrine (used to treat severe allergic reactions) and inhalers. But naloxone is typically excluded from such life-saving medication lists. (While the aerosolized version can now be bought over the counter, many other formulations still require a prescription.) And while in some states, minors can consent to their own medical care — such as receiving a naloxone prescription — in others, they need a parent’s blessing. Asking teens to explain to their parents why they need an opioid antidote? That can be a tall order.
Students at a meeting of Bulldogs Against Overdose. Courtesy of Maximiliano Zimbron Martinez Good Samaritan laws (or GSLs) likewise contain “substantial differences” from state to state, according to a 2022 article by researchers from New York University and elsewhere, “which may impact their effectiveness.” While some GSLs only provide legal protections for low-level offenses, like possession or paraphernalia, others offer greater immunity, such as safeguarding bystanders who call the police from arrest, prosecution, and punitive sentencing. (The researchers found that GSLs with arrest protection led to a 10 percent reduction in opioid overdoses in counties across the country.) Still other states, such as California and Washington, offer so-called two-party GSLs that also buffer those experiencing the overdose against severe legal consequences.
Thomas Agostini, a pediatrician in Washington state, says those safety nets are crucial for young people. “Youth have an understandable fear that if they call for emergency services they’re going to get their [overdosing] friend in some sort of legal trouble,” Agostini says.
When it comes to educational practices, in an era of federal censorship of harm-reduction practices in favor of what the Trump administration calls “Patriotic Education,” discussing naloxone is taking a backseat in classrooms across the country. Department of Education data showed that, preceding this administration during the 2024-2025 school year, only about one in 20 students had any Narcan training.
Such resistance to naloxone education, lawmakers say, flatly contrasts with students’ desires. “As I meet with Oregonians in each of our 36 counties for town hall conversations, I hear about the need to combat the opioid crisis, especially from our younger generations who are demanding effective solutions to this epidemic,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a press release. “Helping schools stock and administer it is an important part of what needs to be a multi-pronged effort to tackle opioid overdoses.”
In the meantime, grassroots organizations like Garfield High’s Bulldogs Against Overdose are pushing forward. For its May 2025 launch via Instagram, the group posted a video highlighting that students could get access to Narcan for free through the student health center. It also provided coaching on how to use it, details on local GSLs, and dropped a couple QR codes for more info. To date, Bulldogs Against Overdose has taught students in more than 20 classrooms the fundamentals of Narcan administration and, with the help of the school’s health center, distributed close to 150 Narcan kits.
Oh, and the kid who was found unconscious at that summer siesta? Today, he’s one of the Bulldogs Against Overdose.
