Ind. sheriff praises drug training grants

The grants will provide at least 3K Narcan kits and help train officers to use them

By Rod Rose
The Lebanon Reporter

LEBANON, Ind. — A recent announcement that Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller awarded $127,000 to three groups to help police buy naloxone kits is both unfortunate and exciting, Sheriff Mike Nielsen said.

Overdose Lifeline Inc., the Indiana Naloxone Project, and the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County will use the grants to provide at least 3,500 Narcan kits and training in their use to state law enforcement agencies, Zoeller said at a press conference last week in Indianapolis.

Narcan is the brand name for naloxone, which can reverse the effects of heroin and opioid drug overdoses.

“It is unfortunate that I am excited about this grant,” Nielsen said.

“Unfortunate because we have a drug crisis that we are facing here in Boone County, as well as across the nation,” he said. “Excited, because the issuing of Narcan to our first responders saves lives.”

“I believe we have saved six lives in Boone County since law enforcement first responders have been issued this reversal drug,” Nielsen said. He said Zoeller’s action “is simply the right thing to do.”

Indiana is seeing “disastrously high rates of drug addiction and overdose,” Zoeller said in announcing the grants. “Ensuring all of Indiana’s first responders are trained and ready to save a life with naloxone is a critical and necessary response to this public health emergency.”

The Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County will receive $27,000 to specifically provide naloxone refill kits to Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Indianapolis Fire Department. The agencies will also assist Boone and other metro region counties.

Overdose Lifeline Inc., a nonprofit that works to raise awareness and eliminate the stigma of drug addiction, has received $75,000. Clinton and Montgomery counties are among a dozen counties Overdose Lifeline Inc. has listed for priority treatment. The group will also work with police agencies statewide.

The Bloomington-based Indiana Naloxone Project will use its $25,000 grant in Brown, Jackson, Monroe and Lawrence counties.

“Indiana is in crisis mode as it responds to disastrously high rates of drug addiction and overdose,” Zoeller said in announcing the grants. “Ensuring all of Indiana’s first responders are trained and ready to save a life with naloxone is a critical and necessary response to this public health emergency.”

The Boone County Sheriff’s Office and Lebanon, Thorntown and Whitestown police departments are among the estimated 56 police agencies statewide that have been trained and equipped with naloxone.

A national plague of heroin and opioid overdoses has hit the East Coast exceptionally hard, where a new, deadly combination of heroin has recently emerged, the Marion County Medical Multi-Agency Coordination Center reported Monday.

“Called ‘Hollywood heroin,’ the lethal strain of heroin is said to have led to the death of eight people in Massachusetts over the course of just seven days,” MESH said in its daily situational awareness brief. A mixture of additional, as yet unknown, chemicals have been added to the batch, MESH said.

Massachusetts State Police blamed eight deaths over seven days in a single county on use of the drug, The Boston Herald reported on Jan. 3. Five overdose deaths in a single November day occurred in Haverhill, Mass., the newspaper reported.

A hospital official told the newspaper that in some cases, overdoses resulted because people had used pure fentanyl, a substance frequently used to cut heroin.