'There's definitely a need': Naloxone training offered to N.B. youth

Every Wednesday for the past two years, staff at Youth Quest Central have provided naloxone training to New Brunswick youth who may have to save someone's life someday.

Youth care worker Melissa Scribner offers the training at the drop-in centre that provides support for at-risk youth located in downtown Moncton.

"There's definitely a need for it," said Scribner. "We try to get it out there that we offer this."

Naloxone is a life-saving medication for opioid users who are suffering an overdose.

Byron Rayne, program manager at Youth Quest Central, called it an essential tool to combat the opioid crisis, especially fentanyl.

He prefers to call it a poisoning and not necessarily an overdose.

"Not everything is on purpose, not everything is done with intent and a lot of times those are accidental poisonings. Especially when we're talking about our youth," said Rayne.

Rayne said the training empowers people with the knowledge and skill to save lives.

"We do have one youth that we do know very well that suffered an accidental poisoning. He thought he had purchased a different drug. When he took it, it was actually fentanyl and within three minutes he was purple from head to toe and naloxone is what saved his life," said Rayne.

Fentanyl can be found on the streets in everything from pain medication like dilaudid to cannabis, according to Rayne, and it only takes a small amount to create a fatal dose.

Both Scribner and Rayne spoke about the opioid crisis among youth and how big of a problem it is in Moncton.

Melissa Scribner and Byron Rayne offer naloxone training to youth in Moncton. (Source: Derek Hagget/CTV News Atlantic)

Scribner said you don't see teens taking drugs or living on the streets every day, they're not as visible as older groups of people.

"I feel like if you don't work in this field a lot of people don't understand what happens every day here or what's happening out on the street," she said. "A lot of people just complain about homelessness and people on the street, they're just drug users, they're addicts, but they don't see this side of it."

Another thing people may not know about youth living on the streets, Scribner said, is that they're not allowed in shelters until they're 19 years old.

"There's nowhere for them to go at nighttime under 19, or daytime. This is the only place that they can go under 19 so that's a huge problem in our city as well," said Scribner.

Rayne doesn't believe the organization is enabling kids to continue drug use; instead they're learning to possibly save lives and the training can reduce the strain on emergency services.

Naloxone is a form of harm prevention, Rayne said, and he compared it in a way to seat belts or bicycle helmets.

"If you put a seat belt in a car, it's not to enable a youth to drive recklessly and smash into things, it's to keep their lives safe in case of an accident happened," said Rayne.

Rayne said naloxone usually costs between $40 and $100 per kit at a pharmacy and they're not always in stock.

The youths receive a free kit after the weekly training sessions.

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