The King County Sheriff’s Office is planning to equip all 450 of its uniformed deputies with naloxone—the heroin overdose antidote—by mid-summer, according to a department spokesperson.
“She wants to get every deputy equipped with it,” said Sgt. Ryan Abbott of the recently elected King County Sheriff, Mitzi Johanknecht. “The policy for the naloxone is already completed.”
“This will rollout by summer time,” he added.
The final remaining roadblock is getting getting all 450 deputies trained to administer naloxone, an antidote that prevents deaths from opioid overdoses. This will consist of brief online and in-person sessions.
King County Public Health will supply 250 packs of Naloxone that it has already purchased and the Sheriff’s Department will purchase another 250—for a total of 500. (Each pack contains two doses.) Naloxone doses are administered as a nasal spray to individuals experiencing an overdose.
The leftover 50 doses will be distributed to the department’s drug detective units that work on the street.
In early April, the Seattle Police Department announced that it will equip more of its officers with naloxone, after first supplying it to some officers two years ago.
In 2016, 118 people died from heroin overdoses across King County.
jkelety@soundpublishing.com
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