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Warren police preparing policy so its officers can start using Narcan
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Warren Police Department is finalizing a policy relating to use of Narcan by officers to save the life of a person who has overdosed on opiates.
Use of the drug most likely will begin in a week or two, Chief Eric Merkel said.
One hundred Narcan kits were recently provided to Trumbull County by the Ohio Department of Health after alarm bells were sounded locally earlier this month regarding a spike in Trumbull County overdose deaths.
The kits were provided at no cost after a conference call involving members of Gov. John Kasich’s administration, state Rep. Sean O’Brien of Bazetta, D-63rd, Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere and other local officials.
Seventy of the kits are designated for Warren at no charge to the city. Merkel said he has written a policy for use of the Narcan nasal spray and has given it to the police unions to review. Safety-Service Director Enzo Cantalamessa will need to sign the new policy before it will go into effect.
Narcan, also known as naloxone, reverses the effects of an overdose of opiates such as heroin or OxyContin.
Traci Timko Rose, assistant Warren law director, said the law department is discussing whether to take further steps to charge people with drug possession in situations where someone is revived with Narcan and there are no other drugs in the person’s possession.
Drug-possession charges or misdemeanor drug- paraphernalia charges already are filed in cases where someone overdosing is revived and has drugs in addition to the ones that caused the overdose, or has drug paraphernalia in his or her possession, she said.
A felony drug-possession charge can be filed against someone who has overdosed even if they don’t have other drugs in their possession, but it requires police to secure a subpoena for the blood-test results from the hospital, Timko Rose said.
The question the city law department has to answer is whether that extra effort is warranted to attempt to force someone to confront his or her drug addiction through the courts, she said.
Capt. Jeff Orr, commander of the Trumbull Ashtabula Group Law Enforcement Task Force, one of the top drug-enforcement agencies in the county, said he is encouraging police departments throughout the county to investigate overdoses and overdose deaths as criminal matter — to help identify the reason for the deaths and to stop the same person from overdosing over and over without some type of intervention — in this case criminal charges.
Orr said he has become active on the drug issue because “somebody has to take the lead.”
Orr met with Trumbull County police chiefs last week, but a follow-up meeting with the governor’s cabinet has not yet been scheduled.