Scotland Sets World Standard by Giving All Police Officers Naloxone

After a successful trial, Scotland is to become the first country in the world where all frontline police officers carry Naloxone, a spray to stop people dying of drug overdoses, reports iNews. During the trials in Glasgow, Dundee, Falkirk, Stirling, and Caithness, officers used the spray on 62 occasions, potentially saving dozens of lives in the process. The nation has by far the highest drug death rate of any country in Europe and Police Scotland is now working to secure enough stock of Naloxone before beginning a national training programme for more than 12,000 officers. “We have a positive legal duty to improve the lives of our communities,” said Chief Constable Iain Livingstone. “Equipping and training officers with Naloxone will contribute to that mission.”

However, Livingstone also stressed that the initiative alone would not be enough to fix Scotland’s drugs deaths problem and that other initiatives, including support services for those who suffer drug addiction and their families and pinpointed enforcement against organized crime groups supplying the drugs, will be needed to address the issue of drug addiction and abuse in Scotland.