BOSTON (SHNS) – It was during a work trip to the San Diego area when Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian realized the full harm reduction potential of having a free Narcan vending machine at a jail.
A corrections officer there demonstrated how visitors to the facility could use the self-serve machine to obtain free doses of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone. And when the machine dispensed the kit, the officer turned to everyone observing and, rather than return the kit to the machine to be distributed outside the demo, casually asked, “Does anyone want this?”
When someone took the officer up on the offer, Koutoujian said, it drove home the difference between Narcan being available for someone to go out and buy on their own (it retails for about $23 a dose at CVS) and having that potentially life-saving medication be offered for free to anyone who is interested.
And that experience led Koutoujian to have a similar free naloxone vending machine installed last month at the visitor’s center of the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction in Billerica. It has been used nearly 30 times by visitors and staff since, he said, and a second machine is already being planned.