AUSTIN (KXAN) — For the second year in a row, accidental drug deaths went down in Travis County, the medical examiner’s annual report for 2025 showed. Fentanyl deaths also went down significantly.
“I think in large part due to the Narcan that we distribute, that the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance distributes, the city of Austin, the state of Texas … it’s a group effort but it’s working,” Travis County Judge Andy Brown said. “That number keeps going down.”
Maggie Luna, the director of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance (THRA), agreed with that sentiment, and says anecdotally they’re seeing the impacts of naloxone — or Narcan. She says at the THRA drop-in location off of Cesar Chavez, and when staff are doing outreach, the THRA is regularly hearing stories of naloxone saving lives.
Luna said she recently had someone bang on the THRA’s door asking for Narcan. Staff ran out the back and found a man who was not breathing, Luna said. They gave him a dose of naloxone and he was revived…