As opioid overdoses take the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year, the epidemic has made many jurisdictions and public agencies that deal with health and safety reconsider long-held attitudes. Several cities are moving to establish safe-injection sites, something that would have been unthinkable to most policymakers just a few years ago. Medicaid programs have begun offering alternative methods of pain management, such as yoga and acupuncture, before prescribing opioids. For police departments, an arrest-first mentality is beginning to give way to more compassionate approaches aimed at helping people struggling with addiction, Governing reports. Two years ago, a handful of police departments began requiring officers to carry naloxone, the life-saving drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. At least 1,200 police departments now have some kind of program that equips officers with naloxone.
For many police officers, it’s been a mindset shift. “Our officers were skeptical, but it’s been going well with no strain on staffing,” says Sgt. Baron Brown of the Ferndale, Mi., Police Department. The force is a part of Hope Not Handcuffs, an initiative that allows anyone struggling with substance abuse to go without fear of arrest to a participating police department, which will work to place the person in a recovery program. Hope Not Handcuffs kicked off in February 2017 with police departments across five counties taking part. As of June, nearly 1,400 people had walked into police stations seeking help. At the national level, the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, established in 2015, works similarly to Hope Not Handcuffs. It redirects people to recovery programs who might otherwise be arrested. The initiative has worked with more than 140 police departments. In the program’s first year, communities saw a decrease in addiction-related crimes by as much as 25 percent.