It is likely that as you read this story you will either know a family member, co-worker and friend who has been impacted by the fentanyl epidemic. Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, has infiltrated communities across the country. Unfortunately, West Virginia leads all states by a wide margin – 66.6 people out of every 100,000 dies of a fentanyl overdose in West Virginia (as of 2021).
Test Strips Save Lives (TSSL), a Morgantown-based nonprofit, has begun taking action to prevent and raise awareness on the ever-growing issue of fentanyl-based overdoses in West Virginia. For those unfamiliar, a brother passed away in December 2020. “After he passed, we noticed more students overdosing and passing away. Realizing this wasn’t just an anomaly, we wanted to do something about it”, noted Alex Fisher ’17, President & Treasurer, of TSSL.
In April 2022, Fisher and his Phi Psi brothers and company officers: Owen Gray ’17 (Vice President), Skyler Humphrey ’17 (Secretary), and Juan Felipe Castellanos ’17 began planning how they were going to start the non-profit organization. They had begun reaching out to other organizations, like Milan Puskar Health Right, that focus on the Fentanyl epidemic. “Before starting our own organization, we initially piloted a program with the Milan Puskar Health Right, mphealthright.org, throughout 2022 to test the feasibility and demand for our program in Morgantown. They would supply us with the test strips they weren’t using while we would provide the other supplies for the kits. About January 2023 or end of last year we said, hey, we’re going to start our own organization, teststripssavelives.org,” noted Fisher.
Articles of incorporation were then filed with the WV Secretary of State in February 2023 to start the company. “It took time for us to set up a bank account, purchase supplies, and put them together. Thus, we did not start distributing our test strip kits until April,” continued Fisher. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization has five directors, including the four founders and Caitlan Sussman, a social a worker at Milan Puskar Health Right and Program Director at the Friendship House. Ms. Sussman has served as the in-house expert on harm reduction strategies for the TSSL Team.
The kits contain two test strips, a small 10-milligram measuring spoon and a teaspoon measurer. Fentanyl test strips (FTS) are a low-cost method of helping prevent drug overdoses and reducing harm. FTS are small strips of paper that can detect the presence of fentanyl in many kinds of drugs (cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, etc.) and drug forms (pills, powder, and injectables). The kit also includes a link to the organization’s website for directions on how to properly test substances.
Currently, the company has a network of four businesses in Morgantown that serve as the distribution system, including: Ashbrooke, Fat Daddy’s, The Grind, and Art. The kits can be found on the counters, in the bathrooms, and on the bars, for anyone in the community to take (for free).
“Putting these kits in varying businesses not only makes test strips more accessible to a larger group but also keeps the fentanyl epidemic at the front of people’s minds. We just want to expand access to these harm reduction tools, especially for students and young adults in Morgantown, as people aged 18-25 are more likely than any other age group to use drugs. By year-end (2023), we will have distributed 5,000 test strips,” stated Fisher.
As of right now, there are no concrete plans to expand into other businesses, however, Fisher said TSSL wants to. “The only reason we can’t be in more locations is because of the limited resources, we are already giving out so many in the locations we are in that we can’t even think about expanding at this point,” Fisher said.
Since TSSL is a non-profit organization, all their income is donation based. Since the company was founded, they have raised over $10,000. The money came from the founder’s, friends, and family. “Our team is entirely volunteer based and nobody receives pay. We all do this in addition to our careers,” declared Fisher. For further information on Test Strip Save Lives their Instagram is @teststripssavelives and the website teststripssavelives.org to donate, is available.
