Dive Brief:
- Twelve State University of New York campuses are buying 258 naloxone kits, to be used by university police to instantly reverse the effects of opioid or heroin overdose.
- New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, said the state funding for the kits is intended to “combat the epidemic of heroin overdoses” in the state and across the country.
- According to the press release announcing the funding for the kits, the first police department to require its officers to carry naloxone, in Quincy, MA, has used the drug 221 times from the fall of 2010 through February, reversing 211 overdoses.
Dive Insight:
The announcement comes in the aftermath of several heroin overdoses of SUNY students: a SUNY Oswego student who died in April, another who died in May, two others who had near-fatal overdoses, and a SUNY Binghamton graduate student who died last year. Nearly half of the police officers at the 12 SUNY schools — Purchase, Potsdam, Buffalo, Cortland, Oswego, Albany, Geneseo, Adirondack, Canton, Utica/Rome, Farmingdale and New Paltz — will have the kits. Each kit costs about $60, with two prefilled syringes of naloxone, two atomizers for nasal doses, gloves, and an instructional booklet.
