Gloucester, Massachusetts, is taking a novel approach to the war on drugs, making the police station a safe haven for drug addicts who want to turn their lives around.
In June 2015, Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello began a program, known as the Angel initiative, that has officers taking the opioid users, who walked into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc) or drugs and asked for help, on the road to recovery.
In just two months, his department has helped 109 people get into treatment and gave their lives a new meaning. Between January and March 2015, the opioid crisis had killed more than 300 people in Massachusetts; over 1000 died of opioid overdoses in 2014.
“The war on drugs is over. And we lost. There is no way we can arrest our way out of this. We’ve been trying that for 50 years. We’ve been fighting it for 50 years, and the only thing that has happened is heroin has become cheaper and more people are dying,” he told The Washington Post. “It’s the next logical step in the so-called war on drugs. We need to change the conversation,” Campanello, a former narcotics officer, told AP.
Under the program, the department assigns one of its about 40 volunteers — or angels — to guide participants into detox facilities. Gloucester’s program already has ties with about 40 treatment centers in 15 states. Sometimes addicts go to facilities in Massachusetts, others are sent as far as California or Tennessee. So far, Gloucester’s 109 have gone to 20 different centers in six states at a total cost of about $5,000 to the department.
In order to keep costs down, the police department managed to bargain down the cost of a life-saving detox drug from local pharmacies. “We’ve built partnerships with treatment centers, health plans, health providers, other law enforcement, and certain the public, which has overwhelmingly supported this approach,” he told Upworthy.
Gloucester Initiative Angel Program Update:First and foremost, I would like to thank all of the officers and command…
Posted by Gloucester Police Department (Official) on Monday, August 10, 2015
“Law enforcement can be compassionate soldiers in the fight against this disease. And we can reduce the stigma that society has by simply offering to help and refusing to judge. We now have the legitimacy to say “if we can place 100 people, so can you“. And for those who want to know we have placed 100 people into treatment with a minimal cost to the Drug Seizure account of the Police Department, under $5000.00…for 100 lives,” he wrote on Facebook.
Campanello has created PAARI, Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative, to support the program and to bridge the gap between the police department and opioid addicts seeking recovery. It is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support the Gloucester Police addiction initiative, to aid other police departments to implement similar programs, and to foster a dialogue around the unique opportunity for police departments to take direct action against the disease of drug addiction in their communities.
Has the Angel initiative completely stopped the number of overdose deaths in Gloucester? No. But drug users have started trusting the police, and Gloucester’s new initiative is a huge step in the right direction. It’s too early to determine the program’s success. It’s too early to know whether more addicts will come. But it’s not too early, as Campanello said, to hope.
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