Volunteers from the University of Iowa Department of Psychiatry gave away nearly 1,800 units of naloxone nasal spray at the 2026 Hinterland music festival in St. Charles, Iowa.
This is the second consecutive year that members of the UI Addiction & Recovery Collaborative (UI ARC)—also known as the Addiction Medicine division—have partnered with Hinterland to deliver free doses of the lifesaving medication to attendees of Iowa’s largest annual music festival.
Naloxone, or Narcan, is an emergency medication that rapidly reverses the effects of opioid overdose.
Distributing free naloxone across the state is one of the UI ARC’s primary outreach initiatives, and Hinterland has become one of its biggest success stories. In 2025, the UI ARC team handed out more than 1,300 naloxone units at the festival. This year, they increased that amount by 500.
“The team worked incredibly well together and I’m so proud of everyone who volunteered,” said UI ARC Communications Coordinator, Megan Garringer, who organized the ARC’s presence at Hinterland.
“We really brought our A-game, and people were so grateful we were there. I heard a lot of people say they were super excited that the University of Iowa would sponsor something like this.”
UI ARC employees Jared Swartzendruber, LMSW; Peer Recovery Coach Courtney Hammond; Case Manager Nicole Smith; and Research Program Coordinators Sarah Murray and Tricia Roberts volunteered alongside Garringer for three of the festival’s four days.
They were joined on Friday afternoon by Anne Ventullo, a therapist with the University of Iowa Psychedelic Research Program (IPRP), who posted flyers around the festival advertising the IPRP’s ongoing study into the effects of psilocybin vs ketamine on individuals with alcohol-use-disorder. UI Psychiatry Communications Coordinator Mike Anderson also volunteered with the UI ARC team on Saturday.
The team was stationed at an awning-shaded table near the main entrance of the festival from Thursday, July 30 to late in the evening Saturday, Aug. 1.While music from the mainstage could be heard on the warm summer air, there was little time for the UI ARC team to attend any of the festival’s 40 or so musical acts. For three days they worked in a flurry of activity: handing out naloxone kits as fast as they could package
them and educating festival goers about how and when to use the nasal sprays to save someone’s life.
The trip was not without its difficulties. To overcome low foot traffic resulting from the tucked away position of their tent, the UI ARC team abandoned their usual outreach approach of tabling and instead walked amongst the crowd near the entrance, handing out naloxone and engaging with festival goers as they streamed by. It proved a winning strategy: By 1pm on Saturday, with a whole day and a half of the festival left to go, the team had exhausted their entire onsite supply of naloxone.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we could hand out two, maybe even 3,000 units next year,” said Swartzendruber, a social worker with the UI ARC.
While there, the UI ARC team received a special visit from Jasmine Cosimo, a festival goer who used a naloxone kit she’d gotten from the UI ARC at last year’s Hinterland to save someone’s life.
Cosimo was working the register at a QuikTrip gas station in Des Moines a week after Hinterland 2025 when a customer rushed over and told her that someone had overdosed in the bathroom. Cosimo reported that she found the person unconscious on the floor with drug paraphernalia scattered nearby.
Thinking fast, she grabbed her naloxone and administered both doses, spaced two minutes apart, just like the UI ARC team at Hinterland had trained her. By the time emergency personnel arrived, the person had begun to regain consciousness.
Cosimo returned to Hinterland in part this year to express her gratitude and pose for a photo with the UI ARC team.
Stories like hers illustrate why the UI Dept. of Psychiatry’s Addiction Medicine division goes to Hinterland, according to UI ARC Director Alison Lynch, MD.
“UI ARC’s outreach at Hinterland brings naloxone and critical conversations directly to people across Iowa and the region,” Lynch said. “These conversations increase awareness of overdose prevention, get lifesaving medication into the hands of people who could witness an overdose, and ultimately help erase stigma.”
The UI ARC team spent the rest of Saturday afternoon handing out ARC branded water bottles and cooling towels. In the evening, they made their way to the mainstage to catch the Mumford and Sons show, the first and only musical act of the festival they attended. Their work complete, they returned to Iowa City a day early on Sunday morning.
UI ARC Assistant Director Andrea Weber, MD, MME joined Dr. Lynch in praising their team’s continued outreach efforts at Hinterland.
“Hinterland has been a growing event built on inclusivity and celebration,” Dr. Weber said. “It’s been such an honor for UI ARC to contribute to that celebration for the past few years by increasing the visibility of our services, increasing access to naloxone, and reducing stigma around substance use. The UI ARC Outreach team is a top-tier group of knowledgeable and committed people who always show up and model what empowering our communities looks like.”