Parker County Peach Festival rejects sponsorship from nonprofit giving away Narcan
WEATHERFORD (CBSNewsTexas.com) – It's one of the biggest events of the year in Parker County.
But the upcoming peach festival in Weatherford next month is embroiled in an unusual controversy.
It involves a drug recovery center that says it's being denied a chance to take part as a sponsor because of something it planned to give out for free.
As one of the few resource centers for former drug addicts in Parker County, Unity Recovery says it knows as well as anyone how much opioid abuse has ruined and taken lives.
"The overdose numbers are going up," said Melisa Simmons, Unity Recovery director. "It's a hot, hard topic to not want to have to address and deal with but we have a problem in Texas and in Parker County with drugs."
The staff at the Weatherford nonprofit says they wanted to raise awareness by joining the list of sponsors for next month's Parker County Peach Festival by passing out information and selling peach flavored iced coffee.
They say they spent $15,000 on supplies and paid a $5,000 sponsorship fee to the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce after working out the details through emails.
"Being from Weatherford, it's kind of the annual event you go to in the community, it's the biggest one, so it was a no-brainer for us given our mission for us to want to reach out and sponsor that," said Unity Recovery founder Dr. Robert Ashford.
But Ashford says the $5,000 fee was refunded by the chamber last week and the sponsorship was rejected after it was revealed that free samples of Nalaxone or Narcan, the drug used to revive fentanyl victims, would be given away.
"...it raised some red flags and specifically that the work that we were doing and peer support and distributing of Nalaxone was not aligned with their family values and vision for the peach festival, which for us didn't make much sense," Ashford said.
The president of the Weatherford Chamber of Commerce explained the decision in a statement to CBS News Texas saying that the festival has had a family friendly atmosphere for 38 years.
"We have preserved that environment by strict adherence to standards by which every vendor must abide. The sponsorship for this organization was originally approved; however, we learned the group intended to distribute samples of Narcan, used to treat a drug overdose, this did not meet our vendor terms & conditions."
Tammy Gazzola
Weatherford Chamber of Commerce
The idea that widespread access to Narcan would encourage reckless use of opioids is a myth according to the staff at Unity Recovery. That's because they say victims of fentanyl more often than not, don't even know they're taking it.
The center hopes the chamber will reconsider its decision so it can get its message and life saving treatment out to some of the 40,000 people expected to attend the festival on July 8.
