Minnesota students advocate for adding overdose response, prevention to health curriculum

As the state creates new health curriculum standards this year, high school students want them to include how to prevent, recognize and respond to drug overdoses.

Telling stories about people they know who have been impacted by drug deaths, high school students see the curriculum addition as a way to help their communities and peers. Eighty-four Minnesotans died of suspected overdoses in January, according to the Department of Health.

Students attending the November 2024 Changemakers Forum identified overdose prevention education as their top legislative priority. HF2023, sponsored by Rep. Nolan West (R-Blaine), is the result.

The Department of Education has begun the rulemaking process to adopt state K-12 health academic standards for public schools. The bill would require education on cannabis use and substance abuse in grades six through 12 to include overdose recognition, prevention and response education.

The House Education Policy Committee laid the bill over Wednesday for possible omnibus bill inclusion.

Committee members expressed bipartisan support for the bill in their comments. Rep. Robert Bierman (DFL-Apple Valley) and Rep. Peggy Bennett (R-Albert Lea) agreed that overdoses have likely impacted every person in the committee room.

While efforts to stop drug use must continue, more measures need to be put in place to protect Minnesotans, said Maitreya Reeder, a junior at St. Anthony Village High School.

“Addiction and overdose have never been isolated problems. They affect every single American, whether indirectly or directly, every day,” she said.

Current and former educators, retired physicians and public policy professionals lobbied lawmakers to adopt the change with letters of support.

Retired St. Paul physician Thomas Kottke joined the students Wednesday, telling the committee that 32% of deaths in the 20-34 age range are from overdoses. “It shouldn’t be this way. These people are in the prime of life. They should be in the labor force, not in the ground.”

People rarely have an overdose in the presence of a physician or first responder.

“It is in the presence of peers and friends who could help if they had the knowledge and the tools. Today the students are telling you that they want to help,” he said.