Sheriff’s Office continues to lead the way with opiate-blocker Vivitrol

BOURNE – The Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office watches year-end 2015 approach in the same position it occupied in January, as the nation’s leader in the pioneering use of the opiate- and alcohol-blocker drug Vivitrol.

Since April of 2012, when the first departing inmate received the inaugural shot, 178 have received an injection upon leaving the sheriff’s correctional facility in Bourne. That’s more than their counterparts at any other prison or detention center in the world.

The most recent compilation of figures found that that 82% had not been re-incarcerated at BCCF, the Barnstable County Correctional Facility. This as compared to national statistics that show only about 15% of opioid addicts do not relapse. Other findings for what is at once the homegrown and the world’s largest sample of Vivitrol inmates:

 70% at BCCF reported a drop in cravings, which is the drug’s goal. (Unlike other blocker drugs, Vivitrol cannot induce a high. So it has neither a street value nor an unwanted place on law enforcement’s list of controlled substances.)

 Four of five BCCF inmates showed up for their first post-release injection. The average length of time in post-release treatment is five months. When surveyed, between 40 and 45 percent of those released in the program’s first three years were found to have remained sober.

 The average age for Vivitrol inmates is thirty-one and 27% are female. (Women generally represent about 15% of the BCCF population.)

The sheriff’s office standing as “expert in chief,” meanwhile, continues apace. In the 44 months since program kickoff, dozens of jails, community clinics, court systems, and treatment organizations have tapped the sheriff’s office as a resource. In many cases, the combination of a copious written packet and follow-up consultation has led to some variation of the program Sheriff James Cummings runs in Barnstable County being adopted elsewhere.

The list of groups mentored starts at home with fellow sheriffs in Massachusetts, along with the state Corrections Department. From there, the Sheriff’s advisory reach extends into states large and small, among them Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

Concluded Sheriff Cummings: “The results continue to look promising, more so than I had anticipated going in. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep spreading the word. Meanwhile, our battle against opiate addiction must continue, on this and other fronts as well.”
Media release furnished by Barnstable Sheriff’s Office

 

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