Alcohol & Substance Abuse

“We need to do something differently because our old tactics don’t work. The old tactics of just focusing on the supply don’t work, so we have to go after the demand,” said Lt. Kris Sell.

More babies are being born dependent on opioids. The good news is they can safely be weaned from the drug. But there is little research on which medical treatment is best, or on the long-term effects.

“It’s about teaching men to be mentors, and getting men involved to stop the violence, domestic abuse, the suicides, the hurts, the pain,” Tagaban said.

Safe injection sites, which also connect clients to treatment programs and offer emergency care to reverse overdoses, exist in 27 cities in other parts of the world. Some have been around for decades.

Initially, some objected to making naloxone widely available, arguing that it would simply enable more drug addicts to continue shooting up. Now that more Americans are dying of heroin and prescription painkiller overdoses than from homicides — roughly 28,000 people in 2014 — that argument rarely comes up.

In Kutztown, Pa., school nurses stock naloxone to treat heroin overdoses. “Kids aren’t afraid of it,” a guidance counselor says. “It’s available and it’s cheap.”