The most talked-about spot in UTEP’s Student Union right now is not a coffee line or a study nook. It is a vending machine that gives out free Narcan, which organizers say makes it the first naloxone vending unit in El Paso. Instead of snacks, it dispenses small boxes that each hold two doses of the overdose-reversing medication, and it has already needed multiple restocks in the weeks since it went live.
Machine, Partners and a Name-Free Approach
The machine sits on the Student Union floor and works like any other dispenser, only with a very different payload. Users punch in a number and out comes a naloxone box. The project is a partnership with the Recovery Alliance and Region 10’s naloxone distribution hub, which helped bring the unit to campus.
There is no sign-up sheet and no clipboard waiting nearby. That anonymity is the point. “It’s free, it doesn’t take your name, your phone number, your address,” Maricela Tavares said, according to CBS4.
Students Pushed the Idea
This did not start as a top-down campus initiative. Social work students and faculty at UTEP applied for a state-funded vending unit, then expanded the effort across campus with small mobile “Narcarrito” carts that bring naloxone directly to student hangouts. Faculty involved in the rollout estimate that the vending machine and the carts together have moved thousands of naloxone boxes and have already needed multiple restocks within days of each refill, according to The Prospector.
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