Overdose Prevention with Issa Gianatiempo of Team Awareness Combating Overdoses (March 2023)

On March 2, 2023, Everychild members attended a salon, “Addressing the Fentanyl Crisis on School Campuses”, presented by the USC-based student organization TACO (Team Awareness Combating Overdose) at the home of member Anne Youngblood and her husband, Ben.

TACO’s then-CEO, Issa Gianatiempo, described the need for the organization’s founding in 2020 after the USC campus saw double-digit fentanyl overdoses and students felt that the university wasn’t doing enough to combat the growing crisis. Beginning with 5 members on a mission to combat accidental student overdose deaths via data-backed education and accessible harm- reduction supplies, she explained that the epidemic has since expanded more rapidly than anyone could have anticipated. Now, just four years later, TACO has grown to 7 states with 60 student volunteering on 8 campuses.

The group provides free test strips to students through campus-based quick delivery services which can identify deadly fentanyl-contaminated drugs, thereby alerting an unsuspecting would-be user. They can also help someone determine if an individual in their midst has ingested the substance, thus providing emergency medical professionals with the opportunity to administer, Narcan, the opiate overdose-reversal drug. Additionally, Gianatiempo explained that the strips include QR codes for data collection on positive tests across the country to help academics and officials track the patterns and growth of the epidemic.

TACO runs an overdose-response training course across the USC campus for student groups, and thanks to their efforts, their Greek system now requires the executive boards of all fraternities and sororities to carry not just the test strips, but also Narcan. The event closed with a training session for attendees on how to use Narcan, and everyone was also each provided with sample test strips.