While overdose deaths continue to climb across most of the United States, Tallahassee, Florida recorded something unusual in 2022-2023: a 28% drop in fatal overdoses. The city became the only community in the country to achieve such a decline, and the method behind it challenges how most places think about addiction.
The Rotary Action Group Addiction Prevention North America has built what it calls Project SMART, a multi-pronged approach that addresses addiction from elementary school classrooms to emergency overdose response. Unlike single-focus initiatives, the program combines education, drug disposal, overdose training, and treatment access into one coordinated effort.
Education That Starts in First Grade
The program’s education component stands out for its scope. Rather than waiting until middle or high school to talk about drugs, Project SMART introduces age-appropriate addiction education starting in first grade and continuing through twelfth grade. The goal is to graduate an entire generation of students who understand what addiction is and how it develops, long before they encounter substances themselves.
Beyond schools, the addiction prevention program has trained more than 80,000 citizens in overdose reversal techniques. That training now includes access to OPVEE, a newer overdose reversal medication four times stronger than Narcan, designed to protect brain function and organs during an overdose event.
Making Drug Disposal Accessible
In Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, the group introduced a safe pharmaceutical disposal system that neutralizes medications either in-home or through public kiosks. The approach removes unused prescription drugs from circulation while making the process simpler for residents and safer for police who previously handled disposal.
The organization also maintains a database tracking success rates and costs at rehab and recovery centers, providing families with information that’s typically difficult to obtain when searching for treatment options.
Reaching Beyond the Usual Suspects
Most community overdose response initiatives reach less than 3% of a city’s population with training and awareness. Project SMART aims for 20% to 40%, a significantly higher threshold based on the premise that more trained bystanders means more lives saved.
The program includes 24/7 telehealth treatment access, connecting community members with counseling and psychiatric care without the barriers of scheduling, transportation, or wait times that often delay help.
Currently, 571 Rotary Clubs and their surrounding communities participate in Project SMART. The expansion model relies on local Rotary chapters adopting the framework and implementing it in their cities, creating a network of communities using the same comprehensive approach.
As the organization looks to expand, its model offers something different from typical public health campaigns: a replicable system that doesn’t require each city to reinvent its response from scratch. For Rotary Clubs seeking community health projects, it provides a tested blueprint. For communities watching overdose numbers climb year after year, it offers evidence that a different outcome is possible.