Central Michigan University students can now get condoms, Plan B, pregnancy tests and Narcan free from a campus vending machine.
The machine, which soft launched Monday, Sept. 28, is free for students to use whenever the building is open, according to Central Michigan Life. It stocks hygiene kits, menstrual products, pregnancy tests, internal and external condoms, lubricant, dental dams and Plan B, plus "more," the student paper reports.
Two harm-reduction items sit on the same shelves: Narcan kits that also include a CPR kit, and fentanyl testing strips.
Senior Emma Buschlen, who studies environmental health and safety, started the project with Harsna Chahal, a junior CMU medical student. The pair met through the student group Sexual Health Empowerment and took the idea to Symantha Dattilo, director of the Mary Ellen Brandell Volunteer Center, which manages the campus safer sex program. Dattilo said it was a perfect fit, according to Central Michigan Life.
Chahal said cost is part of the point. "Students are a vulnerable population," she said. "I mean, we don't have like a genuine income. Some do, some don't. And to have these expenses, it's just an extra burden, same with menstrual products."
Buschlen said she has long cared about sexual health and about destigmatizing the conversation around these products. "By us having this vending machine on campus, CMU is taking a preventative approach to protect ourselves and our students from sexual health things," she said.
The machine isn't the only free option on campus. According to Central Michigan University's Office of LGBTQ+ Services and Gender Equity Programs, the office offers safer sex products to any community member, no questions asked, through a partnership with the Central Michigan District Health Department. Appointments are required, at (989) 773-5921 ext. 1409, and tests cover chlamydia, gonorrhea, hepatitis C, HIV and syphilis. That testing is separate from the vending machine.
"Prevention is so much better than reaction," Buschlen said.