Penn is offering free Narcan through vending machine on campus

The University of Pennsylvania this month has joined some other colleges nationally in offering Narcan — which reverses opioid overdoses — through a “wellness express vending machine” on campus.

Penn officials said the addition is not in response to an opioid problem within the student population. Students requested that naloxone nasal spray be available through a vending machine because they wanted to be good neighbors and proactive about responding to the opioid crisis in Philadelphia, said Jackie Recktenwald, Penn’s director of well-being initiatives.

“Students reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, we hear it’s a problem in Philadelphia,’” Benoit Dubé, Penn’s chief wellness officer, said after a team from his office talked about the initiative at a committee meeting of the board of trustees Thursday. “We’d like to be part of the solution.”

The machine also dispenses fentanyl test strips, menstrual products, emergency contraceptives, COVID-19 rapid tests, sleep kits with masks and lavender spray, flu remedies, and other products — all for free. The products are available only to employees and students, who must use their Penn card for access.

The vending machine, Dubé said, creates “easy access without judgment, without concerns for financial resources.”

Nationally, more colleges are offering wellness vending machines, and some of them are dispensing Narcan, including Oakland University in Michigan, Michigan State University, Cornell University, and Carnegie Mellon University. The University of Delaware has a machine with Narcan on the first floor of its student center. The University of Arkansas said this month it would install one. In the Pittsburgh area, Chatham University and the University of Pittsburgh plan to begin making it available through cabinet-style dispensers, according to the Beaver County Times.

The City of Philadelphia in 2022 installed a vending machine with Narcan at a library in West Philadelphia, which was then the first of its kind in a major American city.

“We are actively exploring locations for a second tower, but don’t have a timeline on when that might be placed,” said James Garrow, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

» READ MORE: How to get naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing drug, in the Philadelphia region

But Penn appears to be among the first colleges locally to try it. Temple, Drexel, and Community College of Philadelphia said they do not offer Narcan in vending machines. Temple noted that Narcan is available in its health center and at some student health service events, while CCP said it offers the product at its office of collegiate recovery.

Penn, too, makes Narcan available through training programs and events, and staff and students can also request it through the wellness website. Senior Micaela Alpert, who chairs Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team, a student-run service, said more than 700 people have been trained at Penn over the last year.

“It’s very meaningful to us to be able to take part in this effort and really emphasize harm-reduction initiatives in the Penn community and broader West Philadelphia community,” Alpert said.

The new vending machine is on the third floor of the Arch building, which is central to campus at 36th and Locust Walk and also houses cultural resource centers and student activities. The initial grant for the machine came through the Trustees’ Council of Penn Women, who seek to advance gender equity on campus, Recktenwald said.

In its first two weeks, more than 200 supplies have been dispensed from the vending machine, she said. She did not have information on how many of them were Narcan. Penn officials plan to monitor the progress, including reaching out to those who have accessed products, to see how it has worked and, if successful, add machines to other campus locations next year.

“We are really encouraged by the feedback we’ve received so far and would love to see these machines throughout campus,” Recktenwald said.