I. Overview
Shortly before his unexpected death on July 2, 2022, Ryan Leone established a foundation then entitled “Paul’s Project.” The near-term purpose of the foundation is to provide support to harm reduction programs that provide Narcan (Naloxone) in high-risk areas. The foundation initiative was named “Paul’s Project” after Paul Harper, a close friend of Ryan’s, who passed away in 2019 from an opioid overdose.
Following Ryan’s death, the Foundation board opted to rename the foundation “The Ryan Leone Foundation: the Paul Project.” This name change provides the foundation with greater flexibility to develop other projects under the foundation banner, primarily dealing with addiction and/or incarceration issues.
At the present time, there is an eight-person Board of Directors, including an attorney, addiction medicine physician specialist, high profile businesspeople, a nurse, a IT specialist, a senior addiction specialist, and two recovering opioid addicts. The current board is actively recruiting additional members, including those with non-profit, fund raising, and financial management expertise.
In addition, Frank Leone, Ryan Leone’s father, has assumed an active role. The senior Mr. Leone provides strategic input and general oversight as Secretary/Treasurer for the board and is privy to all financial activity.
II. Ryan Leone
Ryan passed away at age 36. The last 21 years of Ryan’s life were compromised by drug addiction. Although he fought his addiction gamely, long periods of sobriety were intertwined with periods of use. Between the ages of 15 and 34, Ryan spent a cumulative eight years incarcerated, all for non-violent drug related violations.
During one such prison term, Ryan wrote a novel entitled “Wasting Talent.” Self-published, the book preached an anti-drug theme, has reportedly sold approximately 400,000 copies, and provided Ryan with considerable international renown. A second novel, Antiheroes, has just been published posthumously and is available on Amazon. In recent years Ryan turned his experiences as a user and inmate into a large YouTube and Patreon presence, attracting tens of thousands of subscribers. Many subscribers have credited Ryan with helping them to effectively manage their own addictions, which was Ryan’s primary objective.
III. The Problem
Indisputably, our nation and much of the world is in the throes of a drug addiction epidemic. The C.D.C. website notes that there were more than 109,000 deaths in the United States related to drug use in 2022, 81,857 of which were directly related to opioid use including synthetic substances such as fentanyl, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine. Death from an opioid overdose generally occurs one to three hours after ingestion.
Consequently, the window for reversal is quite short and many perish before they can receive appropriate help. Although opioid use is common across all age groups and socio-economic strata, a disproportionate number of overdose related deaths occur in younger populations, among lower socio-economic cohorts and in rural or semi-rural areas.
There are multiple inter-related underlying causes for this epidemic and a “solution” undoubtedly involves coordinated intervention on multiple levels. Much has to do with the evolving fabric of our nation: income inequality, hopelessness, lack of adequate mental health resources, and the counter-intuitive criminalization of addiction. Some or all these issues
may be future projects of the Ryan Leone Foundation. The initial focus of the foundation is to deal with harm reduction; that is, providing interventions when a user does experience an overdose, which in turn will save lives.
Fortunately, there are ways to reverse an opioid overdose if action is taken quickly enough. Narcan (naloxone) is nasal spray (also available via injection) that can be administered. Narcan is widely available in most parts of the country, often at no charge. The challenge is twofold: to ensure that there are adequate supplies of Narcan available in particularly high-risk areas and to get Narcan in places and in the hands of appropriate people to ensure that Narcan will be more likely be readily available when needed. Law enforcement, emergency medical technicians and non-emergency first responders should always have Narcan at their disposal, as well as friends and families of known opioid users.
IV. The Proposed Solution
The projected role of the Paul Project is to and place supplies of Narcan to high risk settings. The latter objective would be addressed both by working in collaboration with other agencies, including non-profits, that already are engaged in this type of work, and providing supplies to target sites in high-risk areas.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that programs for drug users and their caregivers prescribing take-home doses of naloxone and training on its use prevented 10,000 opioid overdose deaths in 2014.
The Paul Project’s goal is to roll out a program in Santa Barbara and then Orange Counties and eventually to use the lessons learned from such a rollout to drop a national presence. Special attention will also be given to rural countries that often have high opioid use rate and lack the resources available in more populated counties.
In The first strategic goal of the Paul Project is to establish a strong financial base. Initial outreach has brought in excellent seed money for the Foundation. A broader one-on-one appeal for donations will be made by foundation board members and other friends and associates of Ryan Leone. A vibrant financial base should allow the project greater latitude to conduct more sophisticated fund-raising efforts in the future.
The Santa Barbara County Opioid Safety Coalition is a local community coalition in Santa Barbara County dedicated to saving lives and preventing opioid misuse. The coalition was formed in 2018 to help coordinate local efforts to respond to the opioid crisis. The Ryan Leone Foundation board voted in October 2023 to direct our initial efforts to acquiring and arranging for the distribution of Naloxboxes (https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=953208285518693) in key locations throughout Santa Barbara County.
In summary, a more enhanced Narcan program would involve hefty increases in supply, expanded education on how to address the availability and proper use of Narcan and an effective targeted distribution plan. The primary focus of the Paul Project will be to vastly increase the supply of Narcan in target areas through direct fundraising and potential grants and facilitation of deeply discounted bulk purchases. In many areas Narcan distribution processes and education practices are already in place; ideally, the Paul Project would focus on enhancing supply while working with existing organizations to support their education and distribution parties as appropriate.
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