NYC unveils first vending machine providing free naloxone

BROOKLYN - New York City unveiled a new vending machine in Brownsville on Monday designed to give New Yorkers a new tool to fight the city's ongoing opioid crisis.

A vending machine located on the corner of Decatur Street and Broadway offers Naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversing drug to anyone who needs it for free, along with instructions on how to use the potentially life-saving drug. 

The machine is part of its "Care, Community and Action" health plan. According to data, 2023 will be New York City's highest year of overdoses ever.

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"We have a rising tide of fentanyl, and now we have other substances entering our drug supply, which is really putting us behind the 8-ball," said Dr. Ashwin Vasan of the NYC Department of Health.

Three more machines will be placed in neighborhoods that data show are the hardest hit by overdoses and the opioid crisis.

"It shouldn’t be luck or privileges that get you to service it should be easily accessible to everyone we know and love in New York," said Dr. Rebecca Linn-Walton of Servies for the Underserved. 

The vending machine also has QR codes to help people find services and resources in their community and also dispenses fentanyl test strips, birth control packs, and baggies containing tools for safer smoking of several drugs.