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Naloxone vending machine in Middlesex County jail offers free overdose-reversing medication
Visitors and staff of the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction can now access the medication anonymously, and for free.
The Middlesex Sheriff’s Office has just become the first in the state of Massachusetts to install a naloxone vending machine, Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian announced Thursday.
The machine was installed at the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction in Billerica, making the opioid overdose reversal medication free to all visitors and staff of the facility. More than 25,000 visits have been processed at the facility in the past two years.
The initiative meets a need for overdose-related care in Massachusetts, the sheriff said.
The vending machine has been utilized 24 times since its Dec. 9 launch, according to a statement from Sheriff Koutoujian’s Office. And approximately 20 to 25% of incarcerated individuals in the Middlesex Jail & House of Correction are receiving a US Food and Drug Administration-approved medication for opioid use disorder (OUD).
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“We have always taken a comprehensive, public health-centered approach to supporting those working through recovery,” said Sheriff Peter J. Koutoujian in a statement. “This new effort builds upon that robust foundation and will help make this life-saving medication more readily available.”
Naloxone:
Individuals can access the naloxone anonymously, by answering quick survey questions related to gender, age, and zip code. The survey responses will be used to “help inform future MSO programming, as well as community-based prevention and intervention initiatives along with stakeholders from across Middlesex County,” Koutoujian said in a statement.
This initiative coincides with recent opioid overdose-related measures in the Greater Boston area, the Boston Globe reported.
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The Middlesex Sheriff’s Office is utilizing funding from a Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Abuse Site-based Program (COSSAP) grant to support this groundbreaking initiative.
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