
An odd looking box has shown up at the Campus Center at Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis (IUPUI) on the first floor in the Vermont Street parking garage. It’s a 24/7 “Opioid Rescue Kit” filled with naloxone nasal spray, and seeing it should make us all ecstatic. There’s also a vending machine filled with free naloxone nasal spray bottles at the Eskenazi West 38th St. clinic, repurposed from selling snacks, to giving away these free devices. These boxes and machines known as NaloxBoxes will save lives, help address an enormous public health problem, and could improve understanding and rational responses to drug addiction. While bioethics often focuses on debates and dilemmas, this is a case of clearly ethical action. Some people have concerns about NaloxBoxes and the attitude they reflect, which I will describe and try to address here, but let me explain why we should all embrace this approach.
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