- Niko Peterson and Zoe Ramsey’s struggle to save lots of lives started after their buddy died in 2021, simply days wanting his sixteenth birthday
- Together with different pupil activists, they went on to kind the group College students Towards Overdose — and after efficiently lobbying college directors to permit excessive schoolers to hold and administer naloxone and fentanyl take a look at strips, they then did the identical on the statewide stage
- “Their buddy died, and as an alternative of simply saying, ‘Oh, that is too unhealthy,’ they actually did one thing for it,’ ” Colorado State Rep. Barbara McLachlan tells PEOPLE
Niko Peterson and Zoe Ramsey, each latest graduates of Colorado’s Animas Excessive Faculty in Durango, nonetheless have fond recollections of a pricey buddy and fellow pupil, who died days wanting his sixteenth birthday.
“He was the epitome of accepting,” Peterson, 18, tells PEOPLE. “It didn’t matter your pores and skin coloration, age, no matter — he can be your buddy. He’d care about you.” Provides Ramsey, “He was extraordinarily hilarious…a ball of pleasure and lightweight and surprise.”
Tragically, that buddy (whom PEOPLE is just not naming per the desires of the sufferer’s household) didn’t dwell lengthy sufficient to graduate with Zoe and Niko this yr. In December 2021, he and one other particular person reportedly overdosed on tablets laced with fentanyl, which they initially thought was Percocet. The opposite individual survived after being given naloxone, a drugs that instantly reverses an opioid overdose, however Niko and Zoe’s buddy died on the scene.
Niko remembers his coronary heart racing when he first heard that his buddy died. “I could not imagine it,” Niko says. “I could not actually course of what occurred.”
Afterwards, Niko, Zoe and different college students gathered at a home to console one another, whereas a lot of lecturers from Animas Excessive Faculty dropped by and provided their help. “We simply sort of sat there and cried for a number of days,” says Zoe.
“All of us lived collectively for somewhat bit, simply being shoulders for one another to cry on,” Niko provides. “It was a time the place the neighborhood actually did come collectively and present that we had the help.”
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A number of months after their buddy’s funeral. Zoe took a category in regards to the Struggle on Medication throughout her junior yr. For his or her last challenge, college students held a forum at Animas High about harm reduction, which the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) defines as an method to equip individuals who use medicine with “life-saving instruments and data” to “probably save their lives.”
On the discussion board, Zoe says she needed to provide out Narcan, the model identify of naloxone.
“I used to be speaking to my college about it, they usually’re like, ‘We wish to try to help you with this. Nonetheless, it’s sort of a legal responsibility to permit college students to hold Narcan for this, this, and this purpose,’ ” Zoe remembers. “Clearly, I used to be somewhat aggravated about that. I used to be like, ‘Okay, properly, can we alter the coverage?’ ”
Niko and Zoe heard about different college students at neighboring Durango Excessive Faculty who had been additionally pushing for change. Amongst them had been twin brothers Hays and Leo Stritikus, who didn’t know Niko and Zoe’s buddy, however had been impressed to take motion after listening to about his loss of life. In addition they confronted pushback from the Durango college board over legal responsibility considerations.
“Our neighborhood [in Durango] has a drug drawback,” Hays, now a 20-year-old school pupil, tells PEOPLE. “I believe numerous college students had a second the place they had been compelled to take a look at the fact of our drug drawback.”
Based on a January report from the New England Journal of Medicine, a mean of twenty-two college students within the U.S. of highschool age died from drug overdoses per week in 2022. Moreover, information from the well being coverage group KFF discovered there have been 1,177 opioid overdose deaths in Colorado in 2022, making up 65 p.c of all drug overdose fatalities within the state.
Hays Stritikus
The coed activists from each faculties then joined forces as College students Towards Overdose.
For the following a number of months, they protested in entrance of the varsity district constructing, attended board conferences and garnered help from mother and father and medical professionals. They additionally obtained opioid antagonists from their native public well being company, distributed them to their fellow college students and taught them the best way to use the treatment.
“The varsity district argued that lecturers are already ready and had Narcan,” Niko says. “However our argument was the lecturers aren’t going to be on the events [and] the skate park [where the students are]. Academics aren’t going to be the place the overdoses are literally going to occur.”
Hays Stritikus
The scholars’ campaigning paid off and final yr the Durango school board voted to approve a coverage that has the district “assume the authorized threat of permitting college students to hold and use Narcan in school.”
“It was actually a giant second for all of us, to see one thing that had began as an thought between pals and between friends to be tailored by our college district after so lengthy advocating and combating for it,” says Hays.
But it surely didn’t cease there. Subsequent, the scholar activists reached out to Colo. State Rep. Barbara McLachlan and different lawmakers to assist them craft laws allowing college students throughout the state to have entry to naloxone and fentanyl take a look at strips. “We had been like, ‘Wow, we are able to actually truly make some change,’ ” remembers Niko. “We had been doing one thing that we felt was proper, and it simply grew and grew, and grew.”
“All final summer season, we dreamed up a invoice we needed to do,” provides Zoe. “I spent the varsity yr serving to write the invoice. We had conferences with completely different college nurses associations throughout Colorado and faculty board associations. We went by at the very least 15 invoice drafts.”
Rep. McLachlan, a retired instructor, heard in regards to the pupil activists’ efforts in lobbying the Durango college board. “It was fairly the argument and fairly the work they needed to do as a result of it had by no means been achieved earlier than,” she tells PEOPLE.
This yr, on Feb. 8, College students Towards Overdose testified in entrance of the Colorado Normal Meeting’s Home Committee on Schooling in help of invoice HB24-1003, which permits college students to have and use opioid antagonists with out legal responsibility, and to make sure that opioid antagonists can be found at school buildings and faculty buses.
“It was so surreal,” Niko remembers about addressing lawmakers. “This is likely one of the moments like, ‘Wow. We’re truly making a change, and making a optimistic impression, and deciding that it is our flip to determine what we wish to do and determine what’s necessary.’ ”
The invoice first passed within the Colorado Home in late February, then was authorized by the Colorado Senate in early April. The state’s lieutenant governor, Dianne Primavera, signed it into law on April 22 and the brand new laws went into impact on Wednesday, Aug, 7.
“They had been following their hearts,” McLachlan says. “Their buddy died, and as an alternative of simply saying, ‘Oh, that is too unhealthy,’ they actually did one thing for it.”
Hays, who’s getting into his sophomore yr on the College of Richmond, says that he hopes the primary impression of the brand new laws is a discount in opioid-related deaths amongst highschool college students. “The second is we hope that this invoice can begin and foster broader conversations inside the training system and inside communities in regards to the actuality of the opioid epidemic,” he says.
Niko and Zoe each acknowledge that the legislative victory is bittersweet. At Animas’ latest commencement ceremony, an empty seat was put aside for his or her late buddy, which was adorned along with his belongings.
“We had a second of silence earlier than all of us began to stroll,” Zoe says. “I do know he is trying over us. I do know he noticed what me and Niko did, and I do know he is happy with us. We did it to honor him. So I am glad we did it.”
“We needed him to graduate with us,” remembers Niko. “That felt very particular. Once I was strolling down [at the ceremony], I kissed my hand and tapped it a few occasions simply to honor him, letting him know that he is graduating with me.”
Should you or somebody you already know is scuffling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
