On Halloween night, Sophie Kennedy and Grace Naysmith could be found tucked in the back corner of the Boulder Theater at a folding table beside a banner that read “End Overdose” in big orange letters.

But that night, Kennedy and Naysmith weren’t there to party. 

For hours, strangers drift by, picking up free overdose prevention kits full of naloxone, fentanyl testing strips and educational pamphlets. Some even pose for photos with their free Narcan before sliding it into their pockets, bras and fanny packs, and slipping back into the sweaty, raving crowd. 

But every once in a while, someone rushes to the table asking for a quick explanation of how to use the life-saving tools. The two know what this usually means: someone is in trouble and they need help.

“It’s definitely bittersweet when you hear someone is using the materials you gave them,” Kennedy said. 

The University of Colorado Boulder students spend a lot of their time at music festivals and concerts, standing on the edge of the crowd, training strangers to prevent an opioid overdose from becoming fatal. In the past 10 months, the pair have done this work at five different music festivals.

But it’s not just the CPR dummies and the free naloxone that brings strangers back to their table — it’s Kennedy and Naysmith’s ability to directly connect with and understand the fentanyl epidemic’s toll on students.

Living through the fentanyl epidemic

By the time they were only freshmen, Kennedy and Naysmith had already lost friends to fatal overdoses. They bonded over coping with the pressure of a worsening epidemic and were searching for a way to help prevent any more of their friends and classmates from dying.

“I want to do this as an ode to the people I’ve lost,” Naysmith said. “I feel terrible that I couldn’t have done something like this while they were still alive because then I get the guilt of maybe I could’ve done something better, and done something to change the outcome.”

“I want to do this as an ode to the people I’ve lost."

But Naysmith said she didn’t think she’d end up working to prevent fentanyl overdoses.

“All the ducks fell in a row, and now I can help other people, and make sure that all my friends and family and loved ones — that the same thing doesn’t happen to them,” she said.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid painkiller that is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In medical settings, fentanyl can be administered to treat pain, but recreationally, illegal drug manufacturers use fentanyl to cut other drugs to lower their production costs, often unbeknownst to the user.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for people ages 18 to 45 in the U.S., but Colorado’s fatal overdose rate declined last year for the first time in over two decades, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. This decrease is a glimmer of hope to harm reduction advocates like Kennedy and Naysmith who have helped facilitate conversations around the opioid epidemic for young people.

“I hear people say ‘you guys are encouraging drug use by being chill’ or ‘normalizing drug use.’ You can say whatever you want about that. At the end of the day, there's people dying, and we have medication to stop it,” Kennedy said. “We need to create a mutual trust with the people that we're trying to get that medication into the hands of in order to have them take it with them.”

In May 2022, Kennedy was in recovery back at home in Los Angeles. She was scrolling through Instagram and came across an ad for End Overdose — a nonprofit organization based in L.A. that works to prevent overdose through education, medical intervention and public awareness. Kennedy texted Naysmith that she finally found a way they could help their friends, and they started the Boulder chapter that fall semester.

The national End Overdose organization was created in 2018 and now has over 20 affiliated chapters. Boulder was the group’s fifth chapter, and the first outside of California. 

“Regardless of if you use, you deserve the tools to do it safely,” Kennedy said. “You deserve to not die when you decide to take a drug. People who use are people too.”

Since her time in recovery, Kennedy has stayed sober, and with Naysmith’s help, the two  have built a community around overdose prevention. 

“Everyone has a different background … and everyone has a different reason why they join this,” Naysmith said. “I think that one thing that I've noticed with people who join End Overdose is a light-heartedness about it. It's kind of ironic that we have this crisis that we're battling, but we still manage to be uplifting.”

Kennedy believes that her own experiences with using drugs, losing loved ones to overdose and now getting sober, have helped her provide a better service to her community. 

“My story with addiction is like a hundred others you’ve heard. Me getting sober just allows me to show up more for this organization,” Kennedy said. “I’ve been able to talk about the experiences I’ve had and share that with people.”

“Hey, Narcan girl!”

Kennedy, the club’s president, and Naysmith, the club’s vice president, said that with support from the national branch of End Overdose, along with their 15 CU student members, they’re able to lead effective on-the-ground overdose prevention efforts. Since establishing their chapter a year ago, Kennedy and Naysmith have built strong connections in the Boulder community.

The members often set up their table at the University Memorial Center, on University Hill or at local venues during events they think their peers are likely to be using drugs, like the August Welcome Fest, Halloween weekend and football game days.

Through tabling, they distribute naloxone (also known by its brand name: Narcan), a medication that rapidly reverses opioid overdoses, and fentanyl testing strips, which test for 10 types of fentanyl. Through pamphlets and training sessions, they educate people on how to use these life-saving tools.

The club members often table at the University Memorial Center, The Hill and local concert venues during events they think their peers are likely to be using drugs, like Welcome Fest, Halloween weekend and game days.

Through tabling, they distribute naloxone (also known by its brand name, Narcan), a medication that rapidly reverses opioid overdoses, and fentanyl testing strips, which tests for 10 analogs of fentanyl. Through pamphlets and training sessions, they educate people on how to use these life-saving tools.

“Whether you use or don't use, the more we can put ourselves in the way of that and stop the inevitable, as big as that sounds, is kind of the goal,” Kennedy said.

By meeting students in shared spaces and leading trainings from their perspective, Naysmith and Kennedy say that they’re able to connect with students differently and more effectively.

“We didn't really start seeing a lot of progress in our work until [the spring 2023 semester],” Naysmith said. “But we already are pretty well known in the greater community. If I'm out, people literally stop me and they're like, ‘Hey, Narcan girl!’”

By meeting students in shared spaces and leading trainings from their perspective, Naysmith and Kennedy say that they’re able to connect with students differently and more effectively. 

“I think with our applicable life experience, we're able to relate more to the people that we train and I think that that makes them listen more, like this mutual trust,” Kennedy said.

“Why not be there to prevent as many overdoses as possible?"

End Overdose doesn’t want to stigmatize drug use, they said, just reduce the risk of getting hurt because of it.

“We're obviously like a very non-judgmental group. We're not going to tell you to not have fun or not do what you want to do. We just want you to be safe about it,” Naysmith said.

As students, they have unique access to spaces that other organizations or university employees don’t. Whether it’s music festivals or parties on the Hill, End Overdose meets students in the middle, according to Naysmith. 

“[There’s a] correlation with EDM music and doing drugs that are more likely to have fentanyl in it,” Naysmith said. “They go hand in hand, so why not be there to prevent as many overdoses as possible?”

Learning to do this kind of outreach with thousands of people has taken some work, Naysmith said.

With the support of the national branch of End Overdose, Naysmith toured with DJ Millennium this summer to work as an on-site resource for fellow young EDM fans. She worked alongside other End Overdose volunteers from across the country to rapidly train over 500,000 people and distribute 10,000 doses of naloxone. 

“We're used to talking to a hundred kids in a room at once — not thousands of half-naked people that are sweating and coming up to you and wondering what they do if they're overdosing on drugs,” Naysmith said.

But Kennedy and Naysmith said their largest impact has been through training CU Boulder students, clubs and fraternities on recognizing and responding to overdoses. They’ve cultivated close friendships and partnerships with fraternity members — relationships which have helped bring accessible overdose prevention to Greek life.

The president of Sigma Pi Zelta Delta, Michael Burtzlaff, has been especially supportive of End Overdose. He ran for election last year with a platform that promised to partner with the non-profit and has worked with the fraternity’s Philanthropy Chair, Adam Field, to prioritize supporting its work.

“It’s something that’s held near and dear to my heart because I did lose a peer to a fentanyl overdose in high school,” said Burtzlaff. “We can't control exactly what people are doing before [or] after our parties, so having guys on hand that are able to handle a situation if somebody were to ever overdose your house is always going to be good.”

In spring 2023, the Sigma Pi and Kappa Sigma fraternities supported End Overdose in organizing a multi-location fundraiser on the Hill.

“[Sigma Pi] does a lot of fundraising for us and they've just been so supportive of everything we do. They're our biggest cheerleaders,” Kennedy said.

Burtzlaff says that he knows these trainings are necessary and have a tremendous impact. 

“I think not just my fraternity, but every fraternity in general, should be doing this and just educating and training their members,” Burtzlaff said.

End Overdose also works closely with the CU Rave Club, which is a club dedicated to connecting through rave music and events. President Connor Smith says he values the partnership because they all share the important goal of harm reduction. 

“Having that student organization here on campus is especially important because we might apply to the rave scene, but I think End Overdose helps the student population as a whole,” Smith said. 

CU Rave Club Treasurer Bodhi Ellzy said End Overdose feels like a breath of fresh air. 

“I feel like it’s kind of a counterculture to counterculture,” Ellzy said.

End Overdose’s partnership with CU Rave Club goes beyond trainings. Their members get together and share party buses on the way to raves at Red Rocks. 

“We brought them along and kind of all posted together with our Narcan,” Smith said. “We just made sure everyone knew, in the bus and everyone at the concert, that we were there to help.”

As STEM majors, Kennedy and Naysmith also bring these trainings to their classmates in integrative physiology, neuroscience and psychology. Kennedy says that they love these trainings because they’re able to incorporate more in-depth explanations and scientific representations of how different drugs and overdoses actually affect a person’s neural pathways. 

"It's really cool because not only do I get to do these trainings, but I also get to tell people how drugs and overdoses actually effect your brain," Naysmith said.

But Kennedy and Naysmith’s advocacy isn’t always easy. Discussing drugs and fatal overdoses can be a difficult subject that some students want to avoid. 

“We've had some organizations refuse to get trained by us because they didn't have time, which is the most difficult because this could have helped save someone's life,” Naysmith said.

She said there are a lot of students who are open to having discussions about drug use and fentanyl.

“Some students, on the other hand, are just being stubborn, and are thinking that's never going to happen to them — and then it does,” Naysmith said.

CU Boulder’s efforts

End Overdose is not alone in its fight against the fentanyl epidemic. Kennedy and Naysmith have worked closely with the Health Promotion office — a program under Health and Wellness Services in Wardenburg — to collaborate on overdose prevention efforts for the CU Boulder community. 

Health Promotion has offered opioid overdose training since 2018, but launched a campaign in 2021 to address the fentanyl epidemic specifically, according to Nicole Mueksch, a spokesperson for CU Boulder. 

Health Promotion started offering free naloxone and fentanyl testing strips in September 2022 and, in spring 2023, it introduced the Safer Night Out Buff Box, which allows on-campus students to order these free resources to their doors.

Chris Lord, the associate director of Alcohol and Other Drug Programs and Collegiate Recovery, said that these changes were only legally possible after the passage of an influential Colorado bill in the spring of 2019. This law enables eligible agencies — local public health agencies, school districts, public universities, law enforcement and harm reduction agencies — to access and administer free naloxone through the Naloxone Bulk Fund.

“There's a societal change happening around the stigma, specifically related to fentanyl and overdose.”

“I feel like [the fentanyl epidemic] has been around for a long time. To me, it feels like we’re just catching up to it,” Lord said. “What's changed really is, it's not so much the way that we as Health Promotion has interacted with students. It's just that there's a societal change happening around the stigma, specifically related to fentanyl and overdose.”

As a part of this societal change, Kennedy and Naysmith leveraged their student experience and access to reach the parts of the community that the university struggles with.

“This peer-to-peer addressing of [overdose] and the campus addressing of [overdose] are two very different stories. I'm super grateful that we get to do this and still have support from the university,” Kennedy said. 

Now, Kennedy meets with Lord each semester to discuss how both groups can cover as much ground as possible. The two organizations share resources in emergencies and appear on panels together. 

“I know that there are people that are pushing for these changes and have been for a very long time,” Kennedy said. “I think the hierarchy kind of trickles down into what can and can't we make happen.”

Mueksch, the university spokesperson, credited the efforts of multiple county, city and university groups that work to combat overdoses.

“What we're doing at the end of the day is knowledge sharing and making sure that our community has the resources that they need,” Meuksch said. “End Overdose has a really unique perspective because they're not just providing resources, they're living it.”

Health Promotion has a promotion problem

Despite the Health Promotion’s efforts, some students say they haven’t felt the effects of these institutional changes —  or didn’t even know these resources existed. 

CU Boulder has also faced criticism from people in and outside the community. Blue Rising Community, an advocacy group led by bereaved parents, has put public pressure on the university since the fatal overdoses of multiple students over the past few years. 

In September 2022, CU Boulder began participating in the national Overdose Mapping and Application Program, or ODMAP, a system designed to track drug overdoses in real time across the country. Mueksch credits CU Boulder Police Department with being the first campus police department to participate in the ODMAP.

“Not to bash the university or anything, but this is the first time I was ever personally hearing about these resources,” Burtzlaff, the Sigma Pi Zelta Delta president, said when told about Health Promotion’s efforts.

Paige Queen, Program Council events director and the manager of Club 156, an on-campus venue, has worked alongside End Overdose but didn’t know the university runs a similar program.

“If we can get the university to fund us having these things in our back pockets during these shows, I think that would be extremely beneficial,” Queen said. 

Queen says that the university should be more proactive —– both in informing students about what resources are available and the permission it gives student employees to promote overdose prevention.

“I think it's a little disappointing that we would have to take it into our own hands when the school has the power to protect the students,” Queen said. 

Health Promotion has taken the lead on obtaining, distributing and managing overdose prevention resources for the whole campus. However, since the office is no longer a part of the Student Affairs division, the distribution of these resources to groups like Program Council will take longer, according to Shane Guinan, assistant director of student engagement for the Center for Student Involvement (CSI) — which oversees Program Council. 

“There's not a definitive path forward just yet,” Guinan said.

However, the progress the university has made in the last few years feels significant to the advocates and educators leading the campus fight against overdose, even if it has been slow to happen.

“Was it fast enough? Of course not. We’re dying. It’s still not enough,” Lord said. “It just depends on what your perspective is.”