Chicago's The Cook County Jail has taken a proactive role in keeping drug-addicted inmates from OD-ing after being released from prison. The facility started providing naloxone, an overdose-reversing drug in nasal spray form in a bid to saving the lives of high-risk inmates.

Naloxone can be administered by the overdosing addict or a loved one during an emergency. The county jail is now one of the 1,217 law enforcement agencies in the US to carry naloxone kits.

Chicago prison finds way to prevent inmates from dying of overdose upon release 

The Cook County Jail in Chicago has begun providing the overdose-reversing drug naloxone to at-risk inmates upon their release. Los Angeles may soon follow suit, as the US struggles to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic.

Approximately 900 inmates at the Chicago facility, which is the largest single-site prison in the country, have been trained to use naloxone nasal spray devices designed to reverse the effects of an opiate overdose almost immediately.

Addicts are most at risk of fatally overdosing in the two weeks after getting out because of their time away from drugs while locked up, Sheriff Tom Dart, whose office runs the Cook County Jail told AP.

“We’ve got to keep them alive (and) if we can get them through that two-week window, they might get treatment, get off drugs,” Dart said.

www.rt.com

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