Narcan Training for Ocean County Police Officers Ocean County Prosecutors Office

this is all about saving lives today as Government trying to make a difference so I do appreciate you coming out here today and and obviously participating we're fortunate also to be the pilot program for the state of New Jersey so ocean county is the first County and you are going to be the first police department they're going to be using Narcan in the state of New Jersey one of the things that's very important to me is that if we're going to do this pilot and do it right if you know anything about it we're going to do the best to do it right is that we need the feedback so one of the things is that once we get done and after you get your training and once you start implementing it I want to know what the problems are if you're going to make suggestions you got to guess the feedback because then as we then train other police departments other prosecutors in a rolls out according throughout the state we do it right again this is all about saving a life okay and trying to make a difference so it's very important it's very dear to us and I just want to say thank you for all your efforts and all the work you've been doing really really appreciate it thank you thank you to really make it safe anybody any physician can do this now I've heard feedback that some doctors say oh I can't prescribe an arcade hello there's very few medications a doctor is not forgetting to prescribe Suboxone one of them as a special training program but Narcan can be prescribed by any position of any special it does give some immunity to the prescriber and to the patient okay so technically there's a large amount of immunity that you have but what if you use it wrong or something like that I'm not a lawyer I can't say how strong the community is we all know that people can sue and complain anytime they want but I think there is a certain amount of protection here and I would say that you are a much greater risk if you don't do this at all because it is still available and then your Pharmacy no I didn't do it I'm glad that you're here today obviously what we're doing is unveiling our program which is our Narcan program and it's all about making a difference and trying to save somebody's life you know here in Ocean County unfortunately we have a huge epidemic of heroin deaths that are taking place in 2012 we had 53 overdose deaths and unfortunately in 2013 we had 112 and so far this year we have 13 confirmed overdose deaths there's two more pending of the 13 10 are heroin overdoses so this program is important to us what it is is that police officers are usually the first people on the scene now they're going to be armed they're going to have a tool and their tool chest that possibly can save somebody's life Narcan is something it's a it's inhaling it's a spray that when utilized can bring somebody back who's who is dying from an overdose and it's all about saving a life so this is an important tool in our tool chest to try to combat this problem hopefully to to get our death toll down and to save somebody's life so I do appreciate getting the message out and letting know that not only in Lakewood but throughout Ocean County this is going to take place the other important thing to know is that we're doing this using no taxpayers money this is money it's forfeiture money it's money that we see some drug dealers so there's nothing better to do than use drug dealers money to save somebody's life they're the ones that cause this problem so hopefully using their money is is now planting a seed for us to get to get the the Narcan it out to the police officers that's what's funding the program and in the end we're hoping that we will save a life