An Ohio sheriff is refusing to equip his deputies with Narcan, a drug that has saved countless lives by reversing the effects of opioid and heroin overdoses.
Sheriff Richard K. Jones of Butler County, Ohio, believes the drug-reversing agent naloxone is enabling the heroin epidemic to prosper. He is the only sheriff in southwest Ohio who doesn’t allow his department to carry Narcan.
“I don’t do Narcan,” Jones told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
He said that his officers have never carried it and never will.
“All we’re doing is reviving them, we’re not curing them,” Jones told NBC News. “One person we know has been revived 20 separate times.”
The sheriff claimed that people who are overdosing typically turn violent on the police after they’re revived.
“Here in Ohio, the live squads (paramedics) get in there about the same time and they’re more equipped to use Narcan,” he said. “The people who use drugs don’t usually like the police and they turn violent once they’re revived.”
Moreover, he said police officers feel “unsafe” administering the drug.
“Some police departments that use Narcan won’t even allow police to use it unless there are two officers on the scene,” Jones said. “The police feel unsafe using this Narcan because they have to get down on their knees, squirt it into their nose, and the people they are saving are not happy to see them. They’re angry as hell.”
In Ohio alone, health care costs related to the opioid epidemic totaled roughly $1.1 billion in 2015. In that same year, Ohio had more prescription opioid overdose deaths than any other state across the nation.
In Butler County, there were less than two dozen unintentional drug overdoses in 2003, according to the Ohio Department of Health. However, by 2015, that number had drastically increased to 195.
Jones claimed the heroin epidemic is so bad in Butler that people are hosting “heroin parties” with designated Narcan providers who can easily purchase the drug at a health department. Also, at least three babies were born addicted to heroin in the county jail over the last 18 months.
Jones believes that the largest debate over Narcan is that the drug has “helped revive and save some lives but not bring down the usage of heroin,” he told Fox News.
