This story, by Aaron Calvin, was first published by the News & Citizen on Sept. 7, 2023.
A naloxone vending machine, the first of its kind in Vermont, has arrived at the currently out-of-commission Johnson Health Center, allowing for greater access to the overdose prevention drug as overdose-related deaths rise throughout the state.
In a ceremony Aug. 31, which was Overdose Prevention Day, the machine was unveiled by executives and staff from Jenna’s Promise, the holistic narcotics rehabilitation program with multiple businesses and recovery sites in Johnson. Guests at the event included Dr. Mark Levine, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health.
Approximately 300 naloxone nasal sprays, designed to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose involving substances like fentanyl, heroin and prescription painkillers, will be available free to anyone any time of the day, any day of the week.
The vending machine sits outside the Johnson Health Center, which was nearly destroyed in the Flood of 2023. The medical team there now provides its services to those in recovery and the larger community at Jenna’s House.
The health center and Jenna’s Promise paid for the machine through a grant from the University of Vermont’s Center on Rural Addiction as part of a regional initiative to place five naloxone vending machines to different towns across New England.
After the vending machine was announced this spring, Caroline Butler, a nurse practitioner that heads the health center, stressed the importance of normalizing potentially life-saving overdose prevention drugs.
“When we put the defibrillators in malls and supermarkets and things like that, everybody was like, ‘Well, we’re not going to use that.’ Now, what’s the first thing you do if someone’s having a heart attack in public? You run for the defibrillator,” she said.
Jenna’s Promise said in an announcement that the campaign to bring the vending machine to Lamoille County was partially inspired by the overdose-related death of a young Johnson resident in 2022, one of 239 opioid-related deaths in Vermont and one of eight in Lamoille County.
