Free Narcan At Austin City Limits. Drug Problem That Bad In Texas?

It's no secret how bad the opioid problem has become not just in Texas, but across the world. People have been using them for decades, centuries even, but things have become so dangerous with them over the last 5-10 years because of the introduction of fentanyl as a popular drug.

Certain opioids are being laced with this incredibly powerful drug, and sending many into overdose status, with a lot of them leading to death.

A popular place to use any kind of drug is at a music festival. You're outside all day and night for 2-3 days straight. Thousands upon thousands of people are around and a fair amount of them partake in the extracurricular activities going on around them.

Austin City Limits Music Festival is one of them. I've been to the festival many times, and while it's a relatively tame festival when it comes to the attendees, there is still plenty of drug use within the crowd. This year though, something is being added that COULD help things out a little bit.

The non-profit organization This Must Be the Place will be in attendance this year, and they'll be handing out packs of Narcan nose spray for free to festival attendees.

The group travels to some of the biggest music festivals across the country to help educate people on drug use, as well as provide something that could potentially save their life should they find themselves in that kind of need.

So far, they've attended Lollapalooza, Bonaroo, and upwards of 20 other music festivals this year alone and have distributed over 34,000 Narcan kits to festival attendees. I'm happy to see that ACL has invited them out, even though I'm not exactly thrilled they had to.

Has the opioid problem in the country just completely grown out of control? I've never seen anyone have to set up a booth at a concert or festival to hand out something like this. The fact that it's even a thing is flat-out scary. Sure, we should celebrate the fact that someone out there wants to save lives, but we should also be extremely fearful that it's something people feel is needed.

Kudos to This Must Be The Place and ACL for being proactive and looking to help save lives, I just wish it wasn't needed.