Philly Police Get Additional Funding For Naloxone
By Paul Kurtz
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Philadelphia Police Department is getting additional funding for officers in the use of antidote for heroin overdoses.
The funding comes in the form of a $50,000 donation from Independence Blue Cross to the Pa. District Attorney's Association.
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams is playing relay man.
"We're giving that to Police Commissioner Ross so that he can buy Naloxone, a nasal mist that will reverse heroin overdose and will save lives."
Commissioner Ross says the timing of this donation could not have been better.
"To be honest with you were at the point of being out of funding for it."
Ross says more than a thousand officers are currently naloxone-trained to keep up with an exploding heroin crisis.
"The heroin addict has a different face now as a result of people being addicted to pain prescription pills and then that's morphing into the use of this heroin. So, you're seeing people who were addicted to heroin that you would have never expected before."
