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Groton Daily Independent
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same amount of drugs they once used to get high before they were locked up could now kill them. “Their threshold has dropped but they may use the amount of drugs they used to use,” said Aminzadeh,
who is helping Los Angeles jails prepare to begin its naloxone program early next year.
It is too soon to gauge the effectiveness of Cook County’s program, but Dart said anecdotal evidence suggests that the kits have saved lives, including a man who was arrested again, returned to jail, and told
of how a friend he had trained to use the kit had done so when he overdosed.
In New York City, more than 4,000 kits have been distributed to friends and relatives of inmates at the
city’s jail at Rikers Island since the program there was launched in 2014.
“We did a survey of their use of the kits after six months and 226 people responded to the survey and
found 50 usages (of the naloxone), and found that 87 percent of the overdoses where the naloxone was used, (the victim) survived,” said Dr. Ross MacDonald, chief of Medicine, Division of Correctional Health Services, New York City Health and Hospitals.
Others have also seen encouraging results. In Rhode Island, a study of 100 inmates found they were able to successfully administer the drug after being released, with a few using it to reverse their own over- doses. A study in Scotland, meanwhile, found that the number of opioid-related inmate deaths dropped within the rst four weeks of release after naloxone kits were distributed.
The growing consensus is that naloxone works. Three years ago, the World Health Organization released guidelines recommending expanded naloxone access to people likely to witness an overdose, including drug users. And the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, which tracked the use of naloxone kits by law enforcement, reported that the number of agencies that equip of cers with kits climbed from 971 to 1,217 in about eight months last year.
There has been little pushback against efforts to expand the availability and use of naloxone, but there has been some. Richard Jones, the sheriff of Butler County, Ohio, said this month that he was sticking by his long-standing policy of refusing to allow deputies carry the drug because he says people can become hostile and violent after being revived by it. Naloxone can cause severe opioid withdrawal symptoms.
Dart dismisses the criticism that by giving the kits he is coddling inmates, saying that it is just one piece of a public health effort that includes intense treatment programs to combat the opioid epidemic.
“Treatment is ne, but that doesn’t recognize the reality that some will use (drugs) again. We can’t get them into treatment if they’re dead,” he said.
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Trump’s six-month stall sparks a White House shake-up By JULIE PACE and JONATHAN LEMIRE, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump is saddled with a stalled agenda, a West Wing that resembles a viper’s nest, a pile of investigations and a Republican Party that’s starting to break away.
Trump on Friday indirectly acknowledged the troubled state of his unconventional White House when he abruptly replaced his chief of staff with hard-nosed retired Gen. John Kelly, until now the Homeland Security secretary.
Kelly will take the desk of Reince Priebus, a Republican operative who was skeptical of Trump’s electoral prospects last year and ultimately came to be viewed by the president as weak and ineffective.
Kelly’s ability to succeed will depend on factors outside his control, including whether Trump’s squabbling staff is willing to put aside the rivalries that have sowed disorder and complicated efforts to enact policy. But the big question is can Kelly do what Priebus couldn’t? And that’s curbing the president’s penchant for drama and unpredictability, and his tendency to focus more on settling scores than promoting a policy
agenda.
No other aide or adviser has been successful on that front.