BU Police Will Carry Antidote for Heroin Overdose First campus force to do so, spurred by non-University drug users

BUPD Officer Bill Campanella (left) demonstrates to officers Diane Smith and Larry Cuzzi how to administer Naloxone to people who’ve overdosed on heroin. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

With cheap heroin flooding the nation and with overdoses spiking, the Boston University Police Department has become the first campus force in the nation to carry and administer the antidote Naloxone (aka Narcan) to heroin victims.

Scott Paré, BU’s deputy director of public safety and BUPD deputy chief, says the move follows incidents where officers responded to overdoses among non-BU-affiliated people on the Charles River and Medical Campuses. No BU community members have been involved in overdoses so far. Boston Medical Center (BMC), BU’s affiliated teaching hospital, has granted BUPD officers the right to administer the prescription drug.

“We see this as an unfortunate epidemic in society, and we want to be able to provide the best response possible,” Paré says. “The decision was also made based on a recent change in the state Department of Public Health’s regulations, which encourages all first responders to have access to the life-saving drug.” He says Governor Deval Patrick’s declaration of an opiate emergency in Massachusetts also helped to spur the BUPD initiative.

Four years ago, Quincy, Mass., became the first police department in the nation to require officers to carry Naloxone, and other departments have followed suit. Under his emergency declaration, Patrick has ordered the Department of Public Health to make Naloxone available to first responders in the state and to drug abusers’ families and friends.

David Perry, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, says he believes BU is the first campus police department to carry Naloxone.

“I applaud them for being visionary,” says Perry, who is also assistant vice president for safety and police chief at Florida State University. He says BUPD’s decision to carry the antidote even though their only experience with overdoses involved people who were not affiliated with the school shows that the police department is “connected to the community.”

Officers will use a nasal spray to administer the drug, which works by attaching to the brain’s opioid receptors, elbowing aside other drugs there. The entire BUPD 52-person force received Naloxone training over the summer, says Peter McCarron, a BUPD police officer. He and fellow officer Kevin St. Ives were the first to be trained, and they instructed the other BUPD officers.

Each of the department’s eight marked cruisers will be outfitted with two doses, McCarron says, and more of the drug will be available at the station.

“Since February, we have responded to approximately 8 to 12 opioid overdose medical calls for non-BU-affiliated victims,” he says. Boston EMS responders saved several of those users’ lives with Naloxone. “All BU police officers are trained as first responders,” McCarron says, “and when minutes count in saving a life from an opioid overdose, having Narcan available makes sense.”

Alexander Walley (SPH’07), a School of Medicine assistant professor and medical director for opioid treatment and prevention programs for both the city of Boston and the commonwealth, welcomed the BUPD initiative.

University officers “commonly interact with people at high risk for opioid overdoses, and they are trained first responders,” says Walley, who is also a BMC physician. “Training them in overdose prevention and equipping them with Naloxone rescue kits gives them a valuable tool to improve both public safety and public health on and around the BU campuses.”

In the weeks after BU officers began carrying Naloxone, at least two other universities, in Georgia, outfitted their police forces with the antidote.