DIXON, Ill. (AP) - Police in the northern Illinois city of Dixon are helping heroin addicts get treatment in an effort to fight the growing problem of addiction.
Heroin users are fast-tracked into treatment if they ask Dixon police for help. Police will dispose of drugs and paraphernalia without pressing charges for possession. Costs for treatment are left up to private insurance, state funds or Medicaid, and rehab centers also sometimes pay for it.
The idea is catching on among Chicago-area police, with Rolling Meadows introducing a similar program recently. Other suburban police departments plan to have their own versions soon, the Chicago Tribune (https://trib.in/1GVHiCG) reports.
About two dozen people in Dixon and Lee County have taken police up on the offer since late August. Police Chief Danny Langloss said results so far are mixed and that he thinks many who entered treatment will relapse, but said it won’t affect the department’s desire to help.
“They’re a person,” he said. “They just need help. And what we’ve done for years hasn’t helped.”
Three people died of heroin overdoses in Dixon within a two-week span earlier this year. Officials met to come up with a response, which included a public forum, a hotline for those looking for treatment and training sessions for people on using overdose-reversal drug naloxone.
Langloss and Lee County Sheriff John Simonton decided to try an approach to addressing heroin addiction developed by police in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The police chief there, Leonard Campanello, announced in May that people who took drugs and needles in to police and requested help would be taken to treatment at a rehab facility.
Campanello said the Gloucester department’s program has had 260 people go through it, and that property crime is down significantly.
“This is not something we can arrest our way out of,” Campanello said. “Addiction is not a crime, it’s a disease, and police can be a voice to facilitate treatment for people who are suffering.”
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Information from: Chicago Tribune, https://www.chicagotribune.com
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