Hennepin sheriff supports wider availability for opiate antidote

Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek Tuesday announced his support for legislation that would allow law enforcement officers across the state to carry a prescription antidote to opiate overdoses.

Hennepin County is seeing an all-time high in heroin overdose deaths, with 48 people dead so far this year. Similar increases in heroin deaths have been seen across the state in recent years.

"I'm asking that law enforcement officers be prepared to save lives when they have the opportunity to do so," Stanek said.

An overdose occurs when opiates shut down a user's respiratory system. The antidote, known as Narcan, temporarily reverses a heroin overdose by blocking opiate receptors, allowing the user to start breathing again. Narcan's generic name is naloxone and is neither an opioid nor a recreational drug. It does cause withdrawal symptoms.

Right now, Narcan can only legally be prescribed from a doctor directly to a patient or administered by medical professionals, such as emergency room doctors and paramedics.

"Oftentimes, it's law enforcement who is the first responder who answers the 9-1-1 call to an overdose," Stanek said. "Seconds can make a difference in saving someone's life."

DFL Sen. Chris Eaton of Brooklyn Center plans to author legislation allowing all first responders across the state to carry and administer Narcan. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already have similar laws.

"It's a very easy thing to do, and if we can get this out in the community, we can save lives," Eaton said. "I hope we can put a stop to the overdoses, and then work on some prevention as well.

Eaton has a personal stake in this issue. Her daughter, Ariel Eaton-Willson, died in 2007 from a heroin overdose.

"The first responders were police, and they did not carry Narcan," Eaton said. "The police who found my daughter immediately began life-saving techniques and the Narcan didn't get there for another half hour."

When Eaton's daughter overdosed in a car outside a Burger King in Brooklyn Center, the person with her did not call police.

Eaton says she also wants to extend a Good Samaritan law to include drug overdoses. Such a provision would ensure that people who are around users who overdose aren't prosecuted for drug possession if they call 9-1-1 to save a life.

A coalition of health professionals and advocates have been meeting since early this year to find a way to pass laws allowing first responders and lay-people to carry and administer Narcan. Lexi Reed Holtum is vice president of the Steve Rummler Hope Foundation, a member of the coalition.

Holtum said the coalition is working with the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy to draft language in the bill that would allow lay-people, like family members of opiate users, to also be trained in how to administer Narcan.

"In other states across the country where they've implemented a 9-1-1/Good Samaritan/naloxone law, getting it in the hands of lay people is just as important as getting it in the hands of first responders," Holtum said.

Holtum lost her fiance Steve Rummler to an apparent heroin overdose in 2011. She said the fact that the Hennepin County Sheriff is backing the legislation is a testament to how the conversation around addiction is advancing in the state.

"Every day I talk to people who have lost someone," Holtum said. "Their drive and their desire to create this law and make this happen in Minnesota is because they don't want to see somebody else experience this needless loss and the grief and the pain and the suffering that goes with that."

Eaton said she hopes to finish drafting the bill so it can be one of the first pieces of legislation introduced when the legislative session starts in January.

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