Los Angeles County has been administering naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug, to people held in county jail much more often — a hundred or more times each year — since at least 2020, according to county data.
In an interview this week with LAist, authorities within the Sheriff’s Department, officials acknowledged that overdoses are a serious issue, but stopped short of detailing how the drugs are getting into the facilities. The department runs county jail system, the largest in the nation.
“We know we have a problem, [and] we are looking. And we are trying to solve that problem,” Paula Tokar, acting assistant sheriff of Custody Operations, said in an interview with LAist.
No tracking of incidents
Because the department does not currently track how many overdose incidents occur in the jails each year, it’s difficult to get an accurate picture of how big the problem is. Citing federal privacy law related to medical information, the Sheriff’s Department said in an email to LAist that it cannot track total overdose incidents in its facilities.
The department does release information about deaths in county custody, including those linked to drug overdose.
For now, the use of naloxone in the jails provides a window into how widespread drug use may be. Department data show naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, has been administered increasingly over the last four years. It was given to people in county jail more than 230 times in 2022.
Michelle Parris, program director with the Vera Institute of Justice — a group that wants to end mass incarceration — told LAist earlier this month it was difficult to contextualize…
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