The concept first made news last June in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Then, eight months ago, the town of Dixon jumped on board, becoming the first police department in Illinois to offer a heroin amnesty program.
Rolling Meadows is offering something similar. And other smaller communities, including Dwight, Princeton and Pontiac, will soon follow.
Closer to home, the Naperville Police Department is gearing up to roll out its own opiate amnesty program called “Connect for Life” – where heroin addicts will be able to walk into the police station and, instead of getting arrested, will be taken to a drug treatment center.
Addicts can even bring their drugs and paraphernalia to the police station for disposal without risk of getting charged for possession.
“It’s a process because it’s out of the box for us,” Naperville Deputy Police Chief Brian Cunningham said of the program that is catching on across the country, particularly on the East Coast, which is experiencing an even more devastating heroin crisis than here in the Midwest.
“It’s a change in mindset for many police officers,” Cunningham continued. But it was a change that had to happen, especially after the drug-induced homicide case from six months ago that made even hardened Naperville detectives realize “they are not criminals but people who have a problem with addiction.”
“We want police to be the connectors to the community … to the groups and sobriety counselors that will help the addicts,” he insisted.
Because there is such a narrow window of opportunity before an addict changes his mind about going into rehab, sobriety coaches will meet with the addict within the hour, and an assessment will be made as to what program would be most beneficial, said Cunningham.
If insurance does not cover the cost, funding is available through grants and drug seizure money.
There are now between 80 to 90 of these amnesty programs nationwide, but Dixon was among the first, which is why Cunningham began meeting with Dixon Police Chief Danny Langloss last year.
Each community is tweaking the program to fit its own needs. While Cunningham doesn’t particularly like the word “amnesty” and wants Naperville to act only as the “conduit to community help,” Langloss has thrown his department into the middle of this problem and is spearheading efforts to expand it to surrounding counties.
According to Langloss, this “shift in the way law enforcement looks at the drug problem” started in earnest last February when the town of 16,000 had three deaths from drug overdoses in a 10-day period.
That’s when he reached out to Gloucester, Massachusetts, which has seen impressive success with its amnesty program. In the eight months since the Dixon program was launched, Langloss said, 38 people in Lee County have received treatment.
The program is working, he said, because all community stakeholders — including hospitals, health departments, law enforcement and prosecutors– are buying into this “more human approach” to the problem.
In addition to getting addicts into treatment and changing the mindset of police, Langloss said, the amnesty program is also getting leaders to work together toward a much-needed “shift in the way we fund addiction.”
In Naperville, training with officers and addiction specialists is set to begin the middle of March with the hopes of rolling out the program before April .
Real change “has to start with police,” said Cunningham. What law enforcement was doing in the past – arresting addicts, going undercover, tackling the so-called Heroin Highway – “was not the way to do it.”
Langloss agrees. “They don’t need jail,” he said. “They need our help.”
