This spring, at the direction of our mayor, Miro Weinberger, Burlington police teamed up with Johns Hopkins, the American Health Initiative, and the Police Executive Research Forum to give police and city leaders things they could do, or advocate for, to reduce the nation's opioid addiction deaths.
They are based on science, and medicine, and they *will work* to lower the number of fatal overdoses and addiction-related deaths. And they're not especially police-like, which wasn't an accident because the police aren't going to stop the dying themselves. Here are some of the highlights and of our city's general strategy, which is a good one for the nation:
- Support and propagate needle exchanges (done in BTV);
- Give out buprenorphine at needle exchanges to basically any user who requests it (BTV is doing it);
- Give out buprenorphine at the emergency room to anyone who presents with an addiction and requests it (BTV doing it);
- Treat every prisoner who needs it with buprenorphine, methadone or vivitrol as best fits them (Vermont is at least trying);
- Stop arresting and prosecuting for simple misdemeanor-level possession of non-prescribed addiction treatment meds (our city's police & prosecutor policy);
- Stop requiring total abstinence in recovery housing and allow people stabilized on addiction treatment meds to live in them (not even close);
- Equip users with the tools to test their drugs for fentanyl (Vermont is doing it);
- Create enough capacity to eliminate wait lists at treatment hubs (almost there in VT);
- Train primary care doctors to treat addiction and prescribe addiction meds (making progress in VT);
- Return the opioid prescribing rate to pre-epidemic levels (on the way in VT);
- Recognize addiction as a chronic disease and that abstinence-based therapy only works a small percent of the time, for certain people (old stigmas die hard);
- Saturate communities with Naloxone (done in Vermont)
By Burlington, Vt. Police Chief Brandon del Pozo
- Give out buprenorphine at needle exchanges to basically any user who requests it (BTV is doing it);
- Give out buprenorphine at the emergency room to anyone who presents with an addiction and requests it (BTV doing it);
- Treat every prisoner who needs it with buprenorphine, methadone or vivitrol as best fits them (Vermont is at least trying);
- Stop arresting and prosecuting for simple misdemeanor-level possession of non-prescribed addiction treatment meds (our city's police & prosecutor policy);
- Stop requiring total abstinence in recovery housing and allow people stabilized on addiction treatment meds to live in them (not even close);
- Equip users with the tools to test their drugs for fentanyl (Vermont is doing it);
- Create enough capacity to eliminate wait lists at treatment hubs (almost there in VT);
- Train primary care doctors to treat addiction and prescribe addiction meds (making progress in VT);
- Return the opioid prescribing rate to pre-epidemic levels (on the way in VT);
- Recognize addiction as a chronic disease and that abstinence-based therapy only works a small percent of the time, for certain people (old stigmas die hard);
- Saturate communities with Naloxone (done in Vermont)
By Burlington, Vt. Police Chief Brandon del Pozo
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