How Nashville is addressing overdoses in its booming tourism district

Acme Feed and Seed is one of many bars and venues in Nashville's tourism district that have installed ONEbox overdose reversal kits.

It’s debatable which part of the city provokes the most “Nashville has changed” comments, but Lower Broadway is in the running.

Lauren Morales has been working in the district since she started pouring tea and lemonade for her dad’s catering business in 1986. That became TomKats Hospitality, with Morales serving as its COO. The company opened Acme Feed and Seed — named for a farm supply store that operated in the building for decades — in 2014. 

“I think there were only maybe a dozen bars on Broadway,” she said. “And then it was already changing so fast, and then the pandemic really accelerated it. We attracted a lot of tourists during that post-get-out-of-the-house time.”

The city’s tourism industry has exploded since then, and it now draws about 17 million people annually.

Over the same period, the overdose rate continued growing across Tennessee. The state ranks only behind West Virginia and Washington, D.C.,  for fatal overdose rates according to 2022 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the city sees thousands of nonfatal overdoses every year. 

“Everyone has some awareness of the opioid issue,” Morales said. “Obviously, there is a link between partying and having fun, and the potential for a mistake. When we saw there was a way that we could safely participate in the solution, I mean, immediately, we wanted to.”

Read the full story at WPLN News Nashville