Leonard Campanello’s take on the war on drugs has evolved as pilot program in Massachusetts works to help addicts toward recovery instead of prison

'No one starts with a needle in their arm': a police chief fights drugs with empathy

Located about 40 miles from Boston, the city of Gloucester looks like a postcard. It boasts quaint cafes, art galleries and bookstores, while the harbor brims with boats. But lately, the city has been drawing national attention for something other than its popularity as a summer spot.

On 1 June, the Gloucester police department began a pilot program in which any opioid addict can walk into the police station at any time, surrender their drugs and related paraphernalia, and not be arrested. Instead, they are fast-tracked into a recovery program. No one is turned away, regardless of their income, where they are from, or what insurance they have.

Thirty days in, 30 individuals have taken advantage of the new initiative and are now in rehabilitation. Though most of those who have entered the program in the past month are from Massachusetts, several have travelled from out of state, including one person who drove 11 hours from New Jersey, and another who flew in from California.

“We try to place everyone as easily and quickly as possible,” says Leonard Campanello, the chief of police in Gloucester.

When a person with an addiction first comes into the station seeking help, they are assigned an “angel”, someone whose duty it is to simply stand by their side, hold their hand and offer support while a treatment plan is formed.

“Many of the people we have worked with have said having an angel made the difference,” Campanello says.

If a local bed at an affordable rate cannot be found for someone seeking treatment, the Gloucester police department locates a recovery program that will offer its services at a serious discount or on a scholarship basis, with people in the initiative being sent to treatment facilities as far away as Florida.

“It’s a dirty myth that there are not enough beds available,” Campanello says. “It’s a myth that has to do with stigma and money.”

So far, the police department has partnered with more than 20 addiction recovery institutions across the country.

When asked if he has received more personal feedback on the program, Campanello points to a corner of his desk, which is covered with a thick, colorful stack of “thank you” cards from people around the country. He then presses play on his answering machine, which transmits the trembling, tear-choked voices of parents of some of the individuals in the program.

“You saved my son’s life,” says one man. “I don’t know if you are a father, but if you are, I’m sure you know what this means to me.”

Chief Campanello – who is a father – has worked in law enforcement for 25 years, seven of which he spent as a plainclothes narcotics detective. During this time, his perspective on drug addiction has changed considerably.

“I have spent a lot of time analyzing the data,” Campanello says. “And the science proves that [addiction] is a disease, not a crime.”

Campanello’s sentiments are representative of a shift in attitudes toward addiction that has been slowly occurring in the US, which leads the world in incarceration rates and where more than half of the prison population is serving time for drug-related offenses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin overdose deaths in the US have quadrupled since 2000, with overdoses now surpassing car accidents as the number one cause of injury-related deaths in the nation. This huge increase is largely due to the explosion of prescription availability for opioid painkillers such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet, which increased to nearly 207m in 2013 from 76m in 1991.

In fact, the US accounts for nearly 100% of the world demand total for Vicodin and 81% for Percocet.

However, recent tightening of regulations on prescription availability and reduced insurance coverage of opioid painkillers has led many to seek out its much cheaper street alternative, heroin, with 77% of heroin users reporting trying prescription painkillers first.

Last year, 1,000 people died of opiate overdoses in Massachusetts, 11 from Gloucester. This year, six more people have died of overdoses in the city, which is what prompted Campanello and his colleagues to take action.

“No one starts out with a needle in their arm,” says Campanello.

Alex Doyle, co-owner of the Gloucester pharmacy Conley’s, agrees. “Nobody dreams of growing up to be a drug addict,” he says.

Conley’s works in partnership with the Gloucester initiative to offer Nasal Narcan, an opiate antagonist that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, to anyone who wants it, regardless of cost. The Gloucester police department has offered to foot the bill for anyone whose insurance does not cover it with money seized from previous drug busts.

“The goal here is to try to remove financial barriers to access,” Doyle says. “This way someone can have a second chance and get the help they need.”

The Gloucester program is already having a ripple effect.

At the end of June, the Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, announced a $27m plan to treat drug addicts. In particular, $800,000 of these funds have been earmarked specifically for an “addiction awareness campaign” to reduce the stigma surrounding addiction.

The plan also calls for 100 new treatment beds in the state, half of which are due to open up starting this month. Meanwhile, Mayor Marty Walsh of Boston said he is considering implementing a similar program to Gloucester in his city.

In response to this interest from other cities and towns, Campanello and several others founded the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI), a nonprofit offers resources to other police departments interested in adopting a similar method for addressing addiction. This past week, PAARI awarded the Massachusetts town of Arlington a $5,000 grant to fund an outreach initiative there modeled after the Gloucester program.

“We fought the war on drugs and it was a good fight, but we lost,” he says. “We’ve done as much as we can to attack this thing from the supply side. Now we need to try to attack it from the demand side.”