Naloxone

Naloxone

The Seattle Police Foundation is proud to provide ongoing support to the Seattle Police Department’s naloxone program, which launched as a pilot in 2016.

Made possible through a grant received from the Marah Project, the pilot program equipped bicycle officers in the East, West and North precincts with naloxone spray that could be used anytime they encountered a person they believed to be experiencing an opioid-induced overdose. Naloxone, sometimes referred as Narcan, is an established harm reduction strategy that can temporarily reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids on a person’s respiratory system. 

It is administered as a nasal spray, and starts working in minutes. This life saving tool can help halt a fatal trajectory, preserving and possibly helping to transform a life.

The program was expanded in 2018, thanks to a $5,000 donation received from the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI), a national nonprofit organization that “provides training, strategic guidance, support, and resources to help law enforcement agencies nationwide create non-arrest pathways to treatment and recovery.” With PAARI’s generous donation, 100 additional naloxone kits were purchased and distributed to SPD patrol officers.    

In the two year span between the program’s inception in 2016 and its expansion in 2018, SPD bicycle officers helped reverse 24 potentially deadly overdoses using naloxone. 

The program has continued, with additional kits purchased and distributed to patrol officers.  To learn more about how this program got started, visit the SPD Blotter.  If you or your organization would like to help support the SPD naloxone program, please contact the Seattle Police Foundation at 206-684-0373 or email the Foundation at info@seattlepolicefoundation.org.