Free naloxone is available to those traveling on Interstate 44 in southwest Missouri through a program called Rest Easy Naloxone. Those behind the effort came together Tuesday to celebrate with a ribbon cutting after giving out more than 430 boxes of the medication since the program started in May.
Travelers who stop at the Conway Travel Centers at mile marker 111 along I-44 can simply enter the welcome center, open up what looks like an old newspaper box and get free opioid overdose reversal medication.
A collaboration of community organizations in Missouri came together for the Rest Easy Naloxone Project.
"What that is, is distribution porch boxes for naloxone and, also available, medication destruction packets," said Derrick Wilson who is with one of the collaborating organizations, APO Community Health Center in Springfield. "And the whole idea is, you know, get naloxone out there to folks who need it. We all know that, even though numbers are starting to come down related to opioid deaths, there's still too many fatalities, too many overdoses, and naloxone is a beneficial medication."
Wilson said naloxone, otherwise known as Narcan, can be a lifesaver, and the partner organizations want to get it into as many hands as possible.
"It could be your grandma who takes one too many fentanyl patches because she forgot," said Wilson. "It could be your child if medication isn't locked up. It can also be the guy that's passed out in the park because he's had some illicit drugs, so we're just trying to provide something that's free and easy to get ahold of."
Christopher Roush, battalion chief with the Springfield Fire Department, said they would like to see naloxone made available at every rest stop or welcome center in Missouri. The fire department has free naloxone at all its stations in boxes that are easily accessible to the public.
Other organizations besides APO that collaborated on the Rest Easy Naloxone project are the Missouri Department of Transportation, Webster County Health Unit, Community Partnership of the Ozarks, Southwest Missouri Drug Poisoning Coalition, Missouri Hospital Association and The Naloxone Project.
