MARTINSVILLE, Va. – What looks like a newspaper box on the street could actually save your life. Free doses of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses, are now available in purple dispensing boxes placed across Southwest Virginia by the Virginia Harm Reduction Coalition.
The boxes — nicknamed “Barney boxes” by coalition staff for their purple color, which represents overdose awareness — are stocked with two nasal spray doses each and include instructions on how to administer them.
“We want to make it super accessible so that even if, ‘oh, I forgot the backpack that it had it in there and someone’s in an emergency,’ that everybody knows that they can always come here, get it,” said Danny Clawson, Executive Director of the Virginia Harm Reduction Coalition…