UW-Milwaukee’s Battle Against the Opioid Crisis

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sent out an email to students regarding an increase in overdose deaths due to fentanyl in the Milwaukee community, according to the update, since last week Saturday at least 18 people have died of suspected drug overdoses.  

Two students, Logan Rachwal and Cade Reddington who were both freshmen, passed away in Sandburg Residence Hall back in 2021 within months of one another.  

“Fentanyl is a type of opioid,” said Susan M. Cushman, who is the Director of Health Promotion and Advocacy at UW-Milwaukee’s Student Health and Wellness Center. “It is prescribed as a prescription medication for pain management, legitimately sometimes, but unfortunately it’s made it’s away into the illegal drug market.”  

According to Cushman, Fentanyl is illegally manufactured and pressed into pills or laced into other types of illicit drugs. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website says that Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.  

“Because it is so powerful, it can stop a person from breathing,” said Cushman. “It’s the primary driver of the overdose deaths in America today.” 

Cushman explains it’s not only a community but a statewide effort because of how pervasive fentanyl has become. Regarding preventative methods of the opioid epidemic on the UW-Milwaukee campus, she says UW-Milwaukee has implemented Narcan boxes all over campus.  

“It is an opioid overdose reversal medication available all over campus,” She says.  

According to Cushman, the implementation of these boxes happened in August of 2022 through a partnership UW-Milwaukee has made with Wisconsin Voices for Recovery, a non-profit based in Madison who helps supply UWM’s campus with the Narcan. She says there are approximately 22 boxes across all UWM campuses, which include Waukesha and Washington County.  

“Each box contains two doses of Narcan, a rescue breath barrier mask and instructions for how to use the Narcan,” she says. “As well it’s just a resource for additional help if someone needs support with substance use.”  

The contents are of the Narcan boxes are free to anyone who needs or might think they’ll need it the rescue medication for themselves or someone else according to Susan.  

“We hope and we encourage people to grab Narcan for free.” she says, “Just take it out of the dispensers, you don’t have to wait for an emergency to have this medication.”  

She says the Health and Wellness Center wants people to be encouraged to just keep them on their persons because you never know when you might need it. 

“Right now, in the state of Wisconsin, a person is more likely to die from a fentanyl related overdose than a car crash.” says Cushman.  

UW-Milwaukee also has an Assistance Policy, which has been in place for many years, where situations involving alcohol or other drugs and theirs an emergency, if a student calls for help from either from 911, campus police or the security desk if their living in the dorms, the student who calls for help are granted amnesty if they are using alcohol or other drugs, according to Cushman. She says this is to reduce any kind of barrier where the student may hesitate to call for help.  

“We know sometimes students worry about getting themselves in trouble, or getting the person who needs the help in trouble, and this policy is meant to say, ‘don’t worry about that, you’re not going to a citation for underaged drinking,” she says. “Just make that call so everybody is safe.”  

There is also a program in the Residence Hall’s called Real Talk, which was an hour-long program that students could attend that highlighted alcohol and other drug safety, that highlighted the Assistance Policy and told students how to recognize signs of any kind of overdose. Students who attended would get their guest passes faster according to Susan.  

“The opioid epidemic is happening; one person dies every five minutes due to overdose,” She says. “Again, it’s fentanyl driving most of those, and we have not been immune, on our campus we have had two student deaths in 2021 that involved substances, and in each case, fentanyl was one of the substances that was involved.” 

According to Cushman, before UW-Milwaukee had the Narcan boxes on campus, discussion about opioid overdoses we’re still present in trainings that every student is required to take during their freshman year. Originally, these trainings were focused on alcohol, and to a lesser extend other drugs, because alcohol is still the number one drug of choice amongst students.  

“With fentanyl you don’t necessarily get a second chance,” she says.