University of Oregon students hope access to test strips, Naloxone increases through Legislature...

Macy Patel started getting worried about fentanyl on campus at the University of Oregon last year.

“I was hearing about friends and hearing stories of people, like friends of friends, who were testing their drugs and having them have fentanyl content, rather than what they were intending to take,” said Patel, a third-year student at the University of Oregon and a member of its student government, the Associated Students of UO.

“Drug use is going to happen on college campuses … And I think the best way to go about [dealing with] that is harm reduction and safe drug use, because it’s going to happen either way, and we don’t want students dying.”

Patel is part of ASUO’s effort to get drug test strips and other harm reduction materials on the Eugene campus to combat the growing number of fentanyl overdoses across Oregon. But they have run into some speed bumps. Drug test strips are classified as drug paraphernalia under state law, and people and institutions can be held liable for distributing Naloxone — also known as Narcan, the medication that helps counteract opioid overdoses — if something goes wrong.