During the July 25 meeting of the Holbrook City Council, Police Chief Mark Jackson asked the council to allow his department to add a policy procedure that would permit his officers to administer naloxone, a drug that counteracts opioids in the system, to individuals that are experiencing an opioid overdose.
Jackson explained that all of the officers have been trained on how and when to administer naloxone, as well as how to record their use of it for department and state record keeping.
“Opioid use has become a plague in Arizona and throughout the United States,” said Jackson. He noted statistics from June 15 to July 20 of this year that reflected 1,102 possible opioid overdoses in Arizona, with 13 percent of those fatal. In addition, 67 Arizona babies were born with possible drug related withdrawal symptoms from opioids.
“We recently had one case in Holbrook with a male subject where the officers administered naloxone. It did counteract the opioid in his system and he did recover from that,” stated Jackson. He also reported that in 2014 when the epidemic began, which was prior to the availability of naloxone, there was one fatality in the city from opioid overdose.
Jackson said that naloxone kits run approximately $75 per dose, but once the officers passed their training the health department furnished the police department with two naloxone syringe kits per officer, free of charge. A grant through the Governor’s Office was awarded that will provide 25 more kits to the department of the nasal inhalant variety. “I’m excited to get these to our officers in order to help the citizens of Holbrook,” said Jackson.
Councilman Richard Peterson asked if a subject could reject the treatment if he was still coherent.
“If he’s alert and responding, I guess he could, that’s his right. But if he went down then we could administer it at that point,” said Jackson.
Peterson then asked, “If the officer misdiagnoses or if there’s an ill effect from this drug, are we protected from liability?”
“There are no effects from this. You could give many doses to a certain person and it doesn’t have any effect on them at all. It just counteracts the opioid in the system,” said Jackson, adding that according to state officials, the effort would fall under the Arizona’s Good Samaritan Law regardless.
Councilman Tim Dixon, who was attending the meeting via Skype from Thailand, then spoke, seeking clarification regarding the overdose in 2014. He asked if Jackson himself saw the report and could verify if opioids were the cause of death, and if not, how he knew for certain.
He continued to ask questions regarding the autopsy until Vice Mayor Wade Carlisle interjected, stating, “I want you to stick to this item here. Don’t go questioning about past cases and stuff like that.”
Dixon said he was getting to a point and Carlisle responded that he was to get to the point and “not this round about thing.”
Dixon asked more questions regarding the statistics and then said that he took issue with police officers doing non-police work.
Jackson disagreed with Dixon stating, “It is police work to save a citizen’s life.”
Dixon, a former police officer who served under Chief Jackson, said he had concerns about the safety issues.
“I don’t believe there is a safety issue,” said Jackson. “That’s our job, to protect the public, and if my officer comes upon a person that’s down and they suspect heroin, and they have the ability to save that person’s life, that’s what they’re going to do.”
Dixon then asked if the chief had read the statutes on the matter.
“I don’t believe there’s a statute; this come from the Governor’s Office,” Jackson responded. “Arizona POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) has provided us with an opportunity to save someone’s life and we’ve been going through Arizona POST.”
Although the question had already been asked by Councilman Peterson and answered, Dixon asked about potential adverse effects of naloxone, saying that he just wanted to limit the city from liability. “Sure it might save a life, it may not save a life, but I’m really not wanting to risk the city for this program,” said Dixon. “I think we’re all listed as defendants in a lawsuit currently and I don’t like that. They sue the city and the insurance company, but that’s not where it ends. We get listed in those lawsuits and I don’t like that. If we do this, we’re opening ourselves up to more liability.”
Vice Mayor Carlisle said, “That’s fine. I’m happy with the extra liability,” which drew nods of agreement from both Councilman Peterson and Councilwoman Francie Payne.
“We have liability every time we place a foot outside the door. If you’re going to speculate, if we don’t do this and somebody dies that could have been saved, we could be equally subject to a suit,” said Peterson. “I don’t want our policemen to be ineffective saving lives because we’re afraid of being sued.”
The council approved the addition of a policy procedure to administer naloxone by police officers, with Payne, Peterson and Carlisle voting in favor, and Dixon voting against it. Mayor Bobby Tyler, and Councilmen CJ Wischmann and Earl Kester were not present at the meeting.
