“You can’t overdose on the stuff, so LT hit him again and he sprung up like he was awakening from a nightmare…”
The State of Ohio is notorious for many things. Three that come to mind are Buckeyes Football, Lebron James, and heroin. The heroin epidemic has been giving the Rust Belt a world-class reputation for years now. One might say that Ohio is smack in the middle of it. Earlier this month, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones made national headlines for his tough stance on how to deal with the heroin users in his jurisdiction.
Before getting into the controversy surrounding Sheriff Jones’ comments, let’s put things into context. The man has heroin stories like state troopers have DUI stories or vice cops have sex stories – proving that cops across the country might all be working the same job, but that the job isn’t the same across the country.
Jones, who was elected as the county’s top lawman back in 2004, will tell you that he’s seen three heroin addicted babies born in his jails from addict mothers in custody. One of them was born in a jailhouse toilet. Jones can tell you a story about a mother and son arrested for shooting up together in their car parked in the jail parking lot moments after mom had just bailed-out junior on heroin charges. Sheriff Jones will also tell you this:
“I’m not the one that decides if people live or die. They decide that when they stick that needle in their arm.”
The Sheriff has been swimming in a heroin hell hole for years now, yet his deputies do not carry Naloxone (Narcan). And according to Jones – so long as he is Sheriff of Butler County – they never will.
Those who live in one of those areas where heroin has not yet started to run rampant might not even know what Naloxone is. Hell, I didn’t know myself until about three years ago. Naloxone is an FDA approved prescription drug that reverses the effects of an opiate overdose by blocking protein receptors in the brain from interacting with the substance. It comes in a few different delivery methods, but they all work the same – instantly and dare I say, miraculously. Seeing a Naloxone injection or nasal spray application put the brakes on what would have unquestionably been a fatal overdose is truly a sight to behold.
I’ve had more experience with Naloxone than I ever expected I would since I resigned myself to being a “crack cop” years back – but heroin is on the rise here in Atlanta just like every place else unfortunately. Most departments in my area still don’t carry the drug, but my department is lucky enough to have a grant-writing whiz kid that has gotten us everything from free combat boots and tourniquets, to Level IV ballistic vests and Naloxone.
Pharmaceutical companies will hand over a stock pile to a police department and write it off on their taxes. It’s a symbiotic relationship, really. The police department looks good without spending a dollar, the pharmaceutical company has a real-deal product showcased every day in a market that’s only growing, and the addict lives to shoot up another day. Everybody wins.
The first time I used Naloxone, it was at a law-office after hours. A couple of the employees went out for drinks and decided that the Jack & Cokes they were imbibing just weren’t doing enough to take the edge off from a hard day’s work. They tied off and powered up – then one of them began to shut down. I arrived in the parking lot and was immediately met by a woman frantically waving her arms to direct me the way an air traffic controller taxies a plane in on the tarmac. When I got inside, I saw a guy foaming at the mouth and convulsing on the ground. No one had the good sense to turn him on his side so he wouldn’t choke. My hands became soaked with sweat as I rolled him over.
The first batch of Naloxone my department received was branded “Evzio” and it was developed with an injector delivery system. Evzio comes packaged in a small plastic container a little bit larger than a Zippo lighter. It fit perfectly in my front vest carrier pocket for that fateful day I honestly thought would never come. You pull the top off and it starts to give you directions in a voice just like the GPS on your Garmin. It told me to find a meaty spot on the outside of the subject’s thigh, press firmly, and hold for five seconds – so I did.
The injection left a small red blood spot soaking through the guy’s khakis where the needle head punctured his leg. I knew I at least made contact. After the first 2mg injection, he stopped convulsing and foaming at the mouth right away. I tried to wake him up but he slept like a smacked-out baby. My Lieutenant (LT) ran out to his car and got another one. You can’t overdose on the stuff, so LT hit him again and he sprung up like he was awakening from a nightmare – but his nightmare was just beginning. They say Naloxone puts the user into immediate heroin withdrawal symptoms after the overdose is defeated.
By the time the paramedics were on the scene, the guy whose life we just saved was beginning to show his ass. “I want to know what they put in my system NOW!” he demanded. I stood there stunned. This junkie was acting as if he were a Kombucha-sipping vegan who had just been force fed a lamb chop or a fitness-freak whose state of ketosis was just upset by someone jamming a pizza down his throat. “We just saved your life,” LT told him. “Did you care about your system when you were shooting H into it?”
The second time I used Naloxone was a little bit scarier. The leasing manager at an apartment complex on my beat called 911 when she found an unresponsive man lying behind an electrical box. When I arrived, he had a used syringe lying next to his hand and his body was contorted in a strange position. He was already in “rescue position” and the vomit from his mouth had pooled on the concrete underneath him. I was able to ID him by the hospital wristband he was wearing, presumably from the last time he OD’d.
It didn’t appear to me that the man was breathing. When I checked for a pulse, I didn’t feel much of anything at all. He was as blue as a Smurf from his fingers to his face. Buddy wasn’t dead, but he was damn close. I hit him with one Evzio injector and he made a moaning sound followed by a snort like a dying pig. It was bizarre. I went to the trunk of my vehicle to retrieve another hit but I realized that I was fresh out. “Sh-T!”, my body camera recorded me saying to myself. “I already used the other one!” One of our supervisors had a good laugh at that when he played it back.
When a second unit arrived, he had the new stuff we received when the Evzio grant expired. Out came the Narcan, a 4mg dose of Naloxone in the form of a nasal spray that works even if the subject isn’t breathing. It goes right into the bloodstream through the porous membrane within the nasal cavity. I already had gloves on so he handed me two of them.
I shot the first in his left nostril – more dying pig noises but no movement. The second went into the right nostril for good measure. His color came back and he began to writhe on the ground in pain. By the time he was loaded onto the ambulance, he looked like he had a splitting headache that not even my worst hangover could ever contend with. 10mgs of Naloxone did the trick. Whether he liked it or not, he was alive.
Before he left, I found a rock of heroin inside of a contact lens container and a “stem” for smoking crack in his pocket. Many states have “Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Immunity Laws” and Georgia is one of them. When the syringes and heroin were found in both cases, I turned them into property for destruction with no possession charges. In the spirit of treating drug addiction like a disease instead of a crime, police are carrying Naloxone and giving users a legal mulligan when it comes to prosecution to prevent people from neglecting to call 911 when someone OD’s. Agree or not, it’s the law of the land.
Sheriff Jones has been getting killed for his stance to not carry Naloxone and instead saying resources need to be used on prevention. Would I have rather pulled a baby from a car fire than save two junkies who’ll be in the same position again undoubtedly soon? Of course, I would – but I do think Sheriff Jones should get Naloxone out there in Ohio, especially if it’s free. For the record, I’d probably vote for him regardless.
