On Wednesday, August 30th, we held a press conference outside the Truxton Fire Station to announce and celebrate the installation of Cortland’s first rural public access Narcan box. Funded by the HEALing Communities Study and Healing Cortland Project, this N-POD (Narcan Point of Distribution) will be stocked and maintained by Healing Hearts Collaborative OOPP, the single most active Narcan Distributor in Cortland County.

You can watch the video of the press conference, courtesy of the Cortland Voice, and read their article about it here; read the the Cortland Standard’s article here.

Healing Cortland had funding to install a Narcan vending machine—we weren’t even the only ones with funding to do this. However, we struggled to find locations that made sense and where business and building owners were willing to host the machine. We redirected this strategy to more closely follow the model of the Narcan Mailboxes—what we are now calling N-PODS: Narcan Points of Distribution. These are larger capacity than the mailboxes that began being installed in Cortland County by HHC in 2021, which means that they can provide more doses of narcan between being refilled. That means it takes less staff time to keep them stocked. That staff time can really add up for locations further out from the City of Cortland. This means that a person looking for Narcan is less likely to find the N-POD empty. Our goal is to install 15 of these in Cortland County locations, prioritizing locations outside of the City of Cortland, Cortlandville, and Homer in order to address this gap.

Like with the vending machine, finding hosts for these N-PODS is key. So, thank you to Truxton Town Fire Dept for your leadership and initiative—having publicly available Narcan here not only will provide a life-saving medication to people who need it but also sets an incredible example for other communities. It says, very clearly, that Truxton cares about people who use drugs, wants them to live, and wants to help them get the support they need. This is huge.

N-PODs are wall-mounted boxes, designed to be water tight, that can hold up to 9 boxes (18 doses) of Narcan. These N-PODS are similar to publicly sited Automated External Defibrillators (“AEDs”), providing both a life-saving resource as well as instructions for use. Although Narcan is very accessible in the City of Cortland, many rural communities have limited access. If you have or know of a rural location for an N-POD to be located, contact Dean O’Gorman at 607-283-6378.

The Fire Department is partnering with Healing Hearts Collaborative, one of (possibly the) most active Narcan distributors in Cortland County. Run by Dean O’Gorman, Healing Hearts will be maintain the supply of Narcan in the N-POD and will work with us to report data (so that we can understand how much use this N-POD gets).

For more information about Narcan and how to get trained or get a kit locally, visit our resource page here. If you have an idea for a good NPOD location—or want to host one yourself—please reach out to Dean O’Gorman at 607-283-6378!