photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A naloxone vending machine outside of the Homeless Resource Center, 944 Kentucky St., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.

As the city prepares to roll out more Narcan vending machines, Misty Bosch-Hastings wants Lawrence to see them and think not of stereotypes, but of real people.

People like her father, Randy Bosch, who died of an overdose 20 years ago.

His name and a list of many others will soon be on the vending machines in the form of stickers dedicated to “the lives we couldn’t save.” Bosch-Hastings hopes that it will be not only a memorial, but a way to fight the stigma associated with overdoses and with naloxone, the nasal spray drug that can reverse them if administered in time.

The machines dispense free naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, to treat overdoses of fentanyl and other opioids. In August, the city’s Homeless Solutions Division installed three of them using grant funding from Kansas Fights Addiction, and it now is working to install several more.

But Bosch-Hastings said there’s something that many people don’t understand about the vending machines and who uses them.

“There’s a lot of assumption that it’s just for people in active addiction, that it’s not for children or parents or one-time users,” she said.

photo by: Contributed Image

An example of one of the sticker designs that will go on Lawrence’s naloxone vending machines. The stickers will feature the names of people who died of overdoses; this one’s list includes Randy Bosch, Misty Bosch-Hastings’ father.

Many =heartbreaking stories of opioid deaths involve people who aren’t addicted and don’t fit the stereotypes. Randy’s story, Bosch-Hastings said, was one of those.

“He was not someone who was unhoused,” she said. Nor was he a recreational drug user. Rather, he had been prescribed OxyContin after he was injured in an accident while remodeling a house.

“When my dad passed away, I was notified by a phone call,” Bosch-Hastings said. “… The paramedics told me a lot of times people will take their medication and not even remember.”

The danger, she learned, was that people might take a dose, forget about it and then take another dose without realizing that they had already had one.

Bosch-Hastings said there are many situations in which people can overdose without realizing the risks. There are people like her father who were taking medication for pain. There are young people trying a pill for the first time and not knowing how dangerous it is.

“It’s remarkable how many times that happened,” Bosch-Hastings said.

There are also, of course, people who are addicted to opioids, and Bosch-Hastings said “they deserve the opportunity to stay alive” as much as anyone else.

“If there’s things that we can do to save lives,” Bosch-Hastings said, “we need to do them.”

• • •

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Angie Bauer, supportive housing rental manager at Tenants to Homeowners, is pictured outside of the agency’s Sunrise House on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. She said Tenants to Homeowners was slated to get a naloxone vending machine soon.

Angie Bauer has seen the toll of fentanyl from two different perspectives.

She sees it in her work at Tenants to Homeowners, as a supportive housing rental manager who often works with tenants who struggle with substance use. But, like Bosch-Hastings, she’s also felt its effects as a grieving family member.

Her son, Colby, died in February 2019 after taking a “pressed pill” that was made to look like Xanax.

“He thought it was Xanax,” she said. But when the toxicology report was done after his death, it revealed the presence of fentanyl.

“My son was a football player, he was a hockey player, he was a gifted musician, and for all intents and purposes lived your average middle-class-boy life,” Bauer said.

But addictions and overdoses don’t care about any of that.

“Addiction can happen to anyone,” Bauer said. “It knows no socioeconomic boundary or family history. Addiction is addiction, and anyone can be at risk.”

Soon, Bauer said, Tenants to Homeowners will be getting a naloxone vending machine, and Colby’s name will be on one of the memorial stickers.

“I think it’s such a cool idea to have names on them of people we’ve lost to overdoses — people that Narcan likely could have saved if it had been available,” she said.

• • •

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Boxes of naloxone in a vending machine outside Heartland Community Health Center, 1312 W. Sixth St., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.

Bosch-Hastings said it’s important that “everybody has access and has education” about naloxone. And the free vending machines have already done a lot to expand access. The machines, which also offer fentanyl test strips, have distributed hundreds of boxes of the lifesaving medication so far.

The first three machines were installed Aug. 25 at the Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St.; the Homeless Resource Center, 944 Kentucky St.; and Heartland Community Health Center, 1312 W. Sixth St. So far, Bosch-Hastings said, 171 test strip boxes and 242 Narcan boxes had been restocked in the machines at the Homeless Resource Center and Heartland; she said the machine at the shelter had not needed to be restocked yet.

The new machines, meanwhile, are getting some final preparations done.

“We have five (vending machines) in our office, and those are almost ready to go,” Bosch-Hastings said.

She said staff was still “working out the logistics” for where some of them would go, but that there would be one for Tenants to Homeowners and another for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health.

Even with the new machines, there will still be gaps. Bosch-Hastings said one place she wanted a machine but hadn’t had success was Massachusetts Street.

“I wish that we had a partner on Mass.,” she said.

But Bosch-Hastings and Bauer were both optimistic about the machines’ impact, and Bauer said that just having access to the medication for free would do a lot to lessen the stigma.

“I think the Narcan machines are going to help a lot of people,” she said.

Bosch-Hastings said anyone who has lost a loved one to an overdose and would like to submit their name for the memorial stickers can email homelessprograms@lawrenceks.gov.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

A naloxone vending machine is pictured outside Heartland Community Health Center, 1312 W. Sixth St., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025.