Risk Of Accidental Opioid Exposure Sparked Dramatic Change In How Police Handle Drugs
Fentanyl is so powerful that even a 2-milligram dose can be fatal, so police officers have adapted their methods of testing drugs to incorporate safety measures.
The San Diego Union-Tribune:
Fentanyl Worries Have Police Changing The Way They Handle, Test For Illicit Drugs
Wearing gloves and working under a hood that vents fumes from the evidence room, La Mesa police Sgt. Katy Lynch pushed a button on the scanner in her hand and shined a laser on the plastic baggie in front of her. In less than a minute, the device, which is about the size of a Nintendo Game Boy, identified the white powder, flashing the word “methamphetamine” on its small screen. (Kucher, 10/7)
In other news on the opioid crisis —
Los Angeles Times:
Costa Mesa Police Add Overdose-Reversal Drug To Opioid-Fighting Arsenal
As communities across the country face an ongoing opioid epidemic, the Costa Mesa Police Department has equipped vehicles and staff with a fast-acting drug that can help reverse an overdose. In the past month, all Costa Mesa police vehicles got kits containing Narcan, a nasal-spray device that administers the prescription drug naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote. (Sclafani, 10/5)
The New York Times:
Life On The Dirtiest Block In San Francisco
The heroin needles, the pile of excrement between parked cars, the yellow soup oozing out of a large plastic bag by the curb and the stained, faux Persian carpet dumped on the corner. It’s a scene of detritus that might bring to mind any variety of developing-world squalor. But this is San Francisco, the capital of the nation’s technology industry, where a single span of Hyde street hosts an open-air narcotics market by day and at night is occupied by the unsheltered and drug-addled slumped on the sidewalk. (Fuller, 10/8)