Ocean County Police Officers Train With Heroin 'Antidote' Drug

Brick Police Sgt. Mike Drew is one of many police officers in Ocean County who has been tasked with the responsibility of leading his department's use of Narcan, a nasal spray that can temporarily reverse the deadly effects of a heroin overdose.

Officers from around Ocean County trained this week in the use of the drug, also called Naxolone, that has been credited with saving hundreds of lives when used by first responders in other states. The Ocean County Prosecutor's Office is leading a pilot program to have the drug carried by police officers and others in the Garden State.

"We do have, obviously, a pretty big heroin problem," said Drew. "So this will definitely help the officers. It’s now just a matter of getting it on the road."

The Brick department is one of 31 departments – out of 32 countywide – that are participating in the Narcan pilot. Friday morning's training session at the office of the county prosecutor was one of two held this week to formally introduce the program.

In Ocean County, the training and the Narcan supplies are being paid for by money seized from drug dealers.

Window of Opportunity

Narcan doesn't guarantee that a person who overdoses on heroin will be saved, said training coodinator Dr. Kenneth Lavelle, though it presents first responders with a window of opportunity to reverse the heart-slowing effects of opium – whether it is heroin or a prescription pill overdose – and get a victim to the hospital for further treatment.

"If the patient is already in cadiac arrest, if their heart has already stopped, Narcan won't help at all," Lavelle said. "But what would help, is if they've stopped breathing, a first responder can breathe for them, and this would help them to breathe again on their own."

"This is most useful when someone has injected so much [heroin] that they've stopped breathing, and they've got a couple minutes before brain cells die," he said. "That would be when somebody finds them turning blue, or when their breathing stops."

Narcan, essentially, gives first responders – or even family members of addicts who are trained in the administration of the drug – a window to help, said Lavelle.

Laws Catching Up to Reality

The pilot program in Ocean County comes nearly a year after Gov. Chris Christie signed into law the Overdose Prevention Act, a measure that made it legal for both police officers and family members of addicts to carry Narcan. The law also bestows legal immunity upon police officers and ordinary citizens who try to use the drug to help an overdose victim.

The law, and the pilot program, come as drug overdose deaths – primarily attributed to heroin – doubled in a year's time in Ocean County between 2012 and 2013. So far in 2014, the death toll is keeping up with the previous year's numbers, officials have said.

"There's no liability that comes to the police officer," said Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato. "It's right in the statute."

Certain aspects of Narcan's legality still need to be worked out, however. As it currently stands, members of EMS squads cannot administer Narcan, and many physicians are reluctant to prescribe it to family members or friends of addicts citing liability concerns.

Coronato said he received a waiver for Ocean County police officers who are also volunteer EMTs in their spare time, enabling them to dispense the drug while they are working as police officers. He is also working with state health agencies in hopes of creating training courses that can be completed by family members of addicts in order to ease physicians' concerns about writing prescriptions for the drug.

"If you look in Quincy, Massachusetts, they've already saved more than 100 lives with this," said Coronato. "What we're really trying to save lives and trying to make a difference."