Audrain County Health Department (ACHD) officials announced this week that free fentanyl test strips are now available at the health department. The move comes after the Missouri state legislature passed, and Governor Mike Parson signed, a bill making the test strips available to the general public without a prescription during 2023’s session last year.

“We’re happy to add this to our arsenal to help fight the opioid epidemic currently occurring in the United States,” stated ACHD administrator and CEO Craig Brace. “Anything we can add that has shown to have a positive effect in this fight is always a plus.”

The tests are for pre-use and post-use testing to detect the presence of fentanyl in a drug that may not regularly have fentanyl in its makeup. In some of the street pills being made by illicit means, an opioid user may not be aware of the presence of the drug mixed with the drug of choice. This could lead to lethal consequences for those users that have never had fentanyl or have a low use threshold for the drug, which could quickly lead to overdose that could lead to the user’s death or serious medical consequences.

In the pre-use, the user would crush a pill and test the residue for the presence of fentanyl. In post-use testing, a user would dip the test strip in his or her urine stream to collect the sample. Complete instructions on how to safely do both tests are included with the test strips.

“We will add two test strips to each resource bag containing NARCAN we hand out for free. One is for pre-use testing and the other would be for post-testing. It doesn’t matter which one is used for which test,” Brace explained. “Plus, we will have test strips available for free at the front desk of the health department and we’ll have some at events where we have a presence.”

The free strips were acquired through the Missouri Institute for Mental Health through the State of Missouri.