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Norwood and Stoughton recently joined a handful of other Massachusetts cities and towns whose police cruisers are equipped to counteract heroin and other opiate overdoses with a fast-acting spray antidote.
Naloxone, also known by its brand name Narcan, can reverse the process of a life-threating overdose without posing dangers or producing a narcotic-like high of its own, according to Norwood Police Chief William G. Brooks III. While naloxone has been available in injectable form for decades, the nasal-spray version is relatively new, Brooks added.
In early December, Stoughton trained 54 police officers in how to administer the spray. Norwood trained 53 police officers in late January. In both towns, a doctor was on hand to supervise the training. Five additional officers will also be trained, Brooks said.
There were roughly 60 fatal opiate overdoses in Norfolk County in 2013. While none was in Norwood, there have been such fatalities in the town in earlier years.
Quincy police, Gloucester police and firefighters, and Weymouth firefighters also carry naloxone as a means of counteracting opiate overdoses, according to Anne Roach, media relations manager for the Department of Public Health. As a result, more than 300 overdose cases have been treated in the three municipalities, she said.