Jean pool?  LOL.

Sorry...but they knowingly went down the path of heroin abuse...instead of trying to get help with their initial addiction, they knowingly started using a substance thats been known for decades or longer to be highly addictive and deadly.  It's not like that information is hidden...I feel bad for the families involved, but the actual users?  Not so much...As much as I try to find sympathy for heroin addicts, I just cannot.

The dealers ?  those fuckers should just be shot on the spot..

Good.

Oh they're just capitalists.

Don't worry, this will work itself out shortly if true. Dead junkies don't reproduce.

the pussification of LE over the years amazes me.

Change dept policy to allow "personal" use of narcan.

Or charge the junkie with capital murder and go on with life.

Thanks for posting that.

Docs can't win.

Try to be responsible with pain medication so as not to get patients addicted: "Letting them suffer!" "Don't care!"

Try to adequately treat pain, giving the benefit of the doubt if not sure: "Irresponsible prescribing creates heroin epidemic!"

I kept it in my war bag. It never came out.

If you don't beat the rescue to the OD call then you don't have to deal with the B.S. until the medics show up.

My agency started giving out lifesaving awards for administering NARCAN. Some of the guys I worked with would almost fight with one another to be the one to shoot it up someones nose.

So how far does your thinking go? Think how many lives would be saved if cops were EMS/Paramedic trained and drove rescue units. Think how many would be saved if we only hired emergency surgeons to act as cops - or better yet, cancelled public education and had emergency surgeons driving around on call in mobile operating rooms. What if we pulled cops off of all nuisance/quality of life calls and put them on nothing but violent felonies? Why not pull cops off of law enforcement and assign them as mentors to people at risk for opioid abuse? That would help to save exactly the same population while diverting the same public servants.

Leaving aside Narcan, cops make those value judgments all the time. Every time a policeman shields a citizen or shoots back instead of cowering in the face of a violent threat, he has made a decision not to try to save the BG. Every time a cop retreats from a hostage situation to await backup, he has made a decision to allocate lethal risk between himself and the hostage.

The sheriff in the OP has made a decision about how to spend his budget. He's decided to place addicts behind every other expenditure. That's his call, just like deciding not to teach his men how to intubate and bag people who aren't breathing.

According to the paramedic that taught the class when we were issued Narcan, there are no contraindications to administering Naloxone and it can't hurt the patient.  As for children, I have no idea.

I'll throw out one more item. So even for EMTs to administrator intra nasal you need a medical control (physican who signs off on your training and SOPs). You think an individual physician will do that for a bunch of cops? When and where is that sustainment training. Every year cops have to qualify with their weapons, do other in service training depending on agency policies and state requirements. So cop/deputy gives narcan, has an adverse response or patient dies anyway from the OD and cop and department gets sued. It will happen! You think it will fly in court to say they were trained 5 years ago with no sustainment or follow up to show contined proficiently? Of course not. Also department may need to add something to their insurance coverage since their deputies are now performing medical procedures?

Finally the drug itself; narcan has been around as far back as I can recall, old drug. Used to cost pennies a dose. Not any more. A lot of drugs have gone up exponentially  (remember epi pen in the news). A nasal dose from one of my pharmaceutical suppliers cost about $151/dose (i just logged on to their web page and loooked). Injectable is about same depending on contracts, vendor and packaging type ect. How many does per squad car? How often does the drug expire, who is in charge of checking this and replacing as needed purchasing and inventory managment takes time too. Replacment be more often in a hot trunk vs. In air-conditioned ambulance.

So with all of this who pays for this? Is that in the Sheriffs department budget. I count hiring medical control, initial training and annual sustainment training (this probably means OT pay for officers and cost of trainers,ect), initial and replacement drug cost and maybe additional liability insurance coverage. I guess you could bill the junkie like the ambulance and hospital do - oh wait they don't pay so that will not work. Sounds cold to put a dollar sign on this but it's reality. Someone has to pay. Right now all of us are. Junkies ain't paying and your talking 10s of thousands of dollars to get going just to put the first dose in the squad cars. Then on going costs. This may sound like an over exaggeration or estimate but I assure you it's not and in a large agency significantly more.

This is something to consider apart from the moral argument. How much should cops be asked to do. Are they cops, medical providers or should they be both? I've been both at dififerent times in my life. My persoal view is let cops be cops and EMS be EMS. Cops should end at basic first aid that non medical providers are taught. CPR, AED and basic first aid. Leave prescription medication use, ACLS and more advanced procedures to EMS. In major metro areas EMS are within minutes of police, sometimes arriving before PD where I live. Even in the ruel area where I was a cop EMS was minues at most behind us in 90% of cases. Less time than it would have taken for me to go out to a car and get a bag of medical crap, fumble through it to find a box of predosed narcan, figure out if I should and can give it and give it. By that time EMS would have had the OD patient in the ambulace and a dose of narcan in them.

The first dose or drink is a matter of free will.

So Pot IS a gateway drug?

works for me

I'm Rick Jones, bitch.

I agree w/ the sheriff.  Let the police secure the scene and protect the medics that show up to administer medical help.

self correcting problem

@ske714


Not stirring the pot, just linking an article supporting my previous posts:


https://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/2012949_andlt-BREAKING-and-winning-biglyandgt---Jeff-Sessions-2017-Health-Care-Fraud-Takedown-worth--1-3-BILLION.html

Yep.  It's out there, for sure.  It has been for a long time.  I remember when they quit making quaaludes because they were passed out like candy, and there was no real clinical application for them.  

EDIT:  I had the wrong person.  I had to refresh my memory.  It sounds like the doctors that were busted were selling pills for a living.  That's not really the same as someone with real pain getting addicted, while taking pills as prescribed.

I was in EMS before I was law enforcement.

Narcan used to be given IV. It hit fast, and every fight I've seen from someone receiving narcan and screwing up their high came from an IV dose.

Last couple of years, I've only seen Narcan given nasally, (unless they're crashing too fast or are too far gone). Narcan administered nasally takes a little longer to kick in and for whatever reason, addicts dont wake up as angry.

But I've seen the fights from administering Narcan happen, this isnt like the tooth fairy or the easter bunny.

nvm