Paramedics have long been using Narcan, an anti-overdose drug, to counter the potentially fatal effects of heroin overdose but a new program in Dupage County has made it possible for police officers to carry and use the drug as well.
The DuPage Narcan Program, which was made possible because of a state law that took effect in 2010, allowed individuals without medical training to administer the drug to victims of opioid overdose. Under the program, police officers are taught how to use the drug as a life-saving tool to help overdose victims.
"Clearly, the sole mission of the DuPage Narcan Program is to save lives," said Karen Ayala, executive director of the DuPage County Health Department. "We are doing this by ensuring law enforcement has the required training and the supply of Narcan."
The program is sponsored by the health department which gave $40,000 for the project to get started and supplied with Narcan.
The program is also hoped to alleviate the county's problem with heroin-related deaths as DuPage County is seeing an increase in the number of fatal heroin overdose. Last year alone, there were 46 people in the county who died from heroin use. Five of these were teens. There were also 87 heroin overdose deaths recorded within the last two years.
DuPage County Coroner Richard Jorgensen acknowledged that the county has serious problem with heroin overdose and said that Narcan could be a handy and life-saving tool that police officers could use. The drug's price tag of $16 per dose also makes it an inexpensive albeit a more doable means of saving a person's life.
"This is a great program in many ways," said Jorgensen. "It shows that our police officers want to be on the front line of saving people's lives."
Training on how to use Narcan began in January and there are now 364 police officers in DuPage county carrying the drug while on duty. The training, however, will continue to push through until spring as the goal is to train 1,244 police officers on how to properly administer Narcan.
"We went from just the idea of doing this to actually training people within a couple of months," Jorgensen said. "Everybody wanted to do this as safely but as quickly as possible because we knew we were having people die."
