Policing evolves as fatal overdoses rise
Potency has increased since amnesty started
GLOUCESTER, Mass. — The city is seeing more heroin overdoses today than it did two years ago when it introduced an amnesty program replicated by hundreds of police departments across the nation that encourages addicts to turn in their drugs to police without fear of arrest to get fast-tracked for treatment.
About halfway through the year, Gloucester, a historic fishing city north of Boston, has had 16 confirmed or suspected fatal opioid overdoses, police Chief John McCarthy said. That compares to the nine confirmed cases the city saw last year and 10 in 2015, when the ANGEL program launched, according to state data.
The department has helped 564 addicts get into treatment, but roughly two-thirds of those came within the first full year. Mccarthy estimates the department is averaging about one walk-in per week.
“We’re in a position to get people into treatment, but the sad part is the drug that they’re taking, in all probability, is going to put them into overdose,” he said on a visit this month. “It’s a lot harder drug that’s on the street.”
Gloucester, like many other communities, is seeing more addicts overdosing on more potent varieties of the drug than it did when its amnesty program rocketed to national notoriety. The rising toll is prompting city officials to try new approaches.
Police and the addiction counselors they work with have been stepping up efforts to reach addicts on the streets and places they congregate, rather than waiting for them to come through their doors.
Mccarthy says a recent spate of overdoses on fishing vessels prompted local officials to start distributing Naloxone, the overdose reversal drug commonly known as Narcan, to boat operators and training their crews on how to use it.
The Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, a nonprofit established to help the Gloucester police and more than 260 other departments in 30 states, has also brought on a number of full-time staffers, including an outreach worker whose job is to keep up with the hundreds of addicts who have gone through the program and to seek new participants.