Massachusetts town takes new approach to opiate addiction
The fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., announced that it will treat, not arrest, addicts who volunteer their drugs and paraphernalia to police.
The fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., announced that it will treat, not arrest, addicts who volunteer their drugs and paraphernalia to police.
Beginning June 1, opiate addicts who show up at the Gloucester, Mass., police station with their drugs will not be charged with a crime.
"Instead," writes Police Chief聽Leonard Campanello in a Facebook post,聽"we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery. We will assign them an 'angel' who will be their guide through the process. Not in hours or days, but on the spot."
Two local hospitals have agreed to "fast track" those addicted to heroin or other opiates who walk in to the station. Additionally, Narcan, a drug used to treat overdoses, will be made available for little or no money at at least one drug store. For those without health insurance, the police will cover the bill, using聽funds seized from drug dealers during investigations.
Opiate addiction has become a major challenge for聽Gloucester, a city of聽30,000. According to the Boston Globe, three fatal overdoses have been reported in the city so far this year. Last year, more than 1,000 people in Massachusetts died from heroin, opiates, or other opioids, reports the Boston Globe. (For comparison, there were 326 motor vehicle fatalities in Massachusetts 2013.)
The problem extends well beyond Massachusetts, as 海角大神's Kristina Lindborg聽reported in her聽March 2014 cover story, datelined in nearby Newburyport, Mass.
"The perception [used to be] that heroin was mostly an urban problem," Anthony Pettigrew, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration based in New England, told Ms. Lindborg. "But now there are no borders, there are no demographic or geographic areas ... that are immune from heroin."
Gloucester isn't the first city in the United States to experiment with a "treatment, not jail" approach to addiction. Last month,聽the state's attorney for Cook County said that the county would steer many nonviolent felony drug cases in the Chicago area to treatment instead of to prison. Seattle, Wash.,聽launched a similar program in 2011.聽
Chief聽Campanello, for his part, says that he will go to Washington, DC to meet with lawmakers and discuss his cities approach. In his Facebook post, he writes: