Danvers Police Equipped with Anti-Overdose Drug Narcan

The Danvers police are now fully equipped to fight opiate drug overdoses.

Amid growing numbers of opiate overdoses — 32 in Danvers last year as opposed to 10 in 2010 — Danvers is joining other police departments in the North Shore by equipping police officers with Narcan, a drug that fights the symptoms of an opiate overdose, reported the Salem News.

“Unfortunately, Danvers has felt the effects of this epidemic like everybody else,” Acting Police Chief Pat Ambrose told the Salem News. “We’ve had to deal with people who have (overdosed) in the bathroom at the mall and you get called in as a medical aid and it turns out to be an overdose.”

The police have been trained to use the drug, which has been stored in all of the department’s cruisers for about a month. Narcan, which is administered nasally, reverses the effects of overdose from opioids and can even revive someone who has stopped breathing. So far, the police have not had to administer the drug.

Danvers Police aren’t the only agency with access to the drug in the town. The Danvers Fire Department has been using Narcan for more than six months and have had to use the drug 20 times.

Both department’s programs operate under the guidance of Beverly Hospital. Once the police obtained a state permit to carry the drug on Dec. 21, the hospital was able to distribute Narcan to the department.