The use of naloxone to combat opioid overdoses has increased steadily in southwest Michigan since a Kalamazoo-based agency started offering it to police agencies in 2016. Southwest Michigan Behavioral Health prevention coordinator Achiles Malta tells us the group currently provides naloxone to 95 police agencies throughout the eight county southwest Michigan region. That first year, 2016, it was only 16 agencies.
“Most of them were actually from [Berrien] County,” Malta said. “The sheriff’s department was on board right away, and the local law enforcement agencies, and also Michigan State Police.”
Malta says Berrien County led the way in getting other departments to take the free naloxone to help those experiencing an overdose. That first year, 2016, it was used by police 44 times across the eight counties, with 39 successes. In 2022, Malta says police used naloxone 162 times in the eight counties, with 134 successes. In Berrien County, it was used by police 78 times in 2022. Malta says seeing so many lives saved has changed attitudes.
“We are trying to be proactive on many fronts, this being one of them. We recognized the need and we recognized the impact that the opioid crisis was having on the citizens of our area, and we decided to do something about it.”
Naloxone is a simple nasal spray that can reverse an opioid overdose. Malta says when it’s used on someone who has taken an opioid, it works nearly 100% of the time. However, naloxone doesn’t help when someone is overdosing on a drug like xylazine, which is an emerging drug. Malta says anyone who knows someone with an addiction problem may want to keep a dose of naloxone around just in case.
