Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Los Angeles jail inmates have been given access to naloxone so they can save cellmates overdosing on fetanyl

LAT:

The [naloxone was] accessible as part of a pilot program the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department launched last month. Officials last week announced plans to expand it and put the drug in dorms across L.A. County’s sprawling network of jails.

The straightforward but unusual strategy comes amid a rise in overdoses in the nation’s largest jail system, where officials continue to struggle to stop the illicit flow of fentanyl into lockups.

...

Sheriff’s officials tested the idea of giving inmates access to Narcan with a few dozen doses in 16 dorms and three barracks in its Castaic jails. Inmates were shown a video on how to administer the spray and were instructed to notify deputies if they ever used it so that medical staff could respond, [the assistant sheriff] said.