New recommendations to help police, local authorities and public health organisations be better prepared to tackle the threat posed by synthetic opioids have been issued by the Home Office.
The advice includes sharing data between police, coroners and health services, making sure police are trained to confidently administer naloxone, fast-tracking drug testing when suspected synthetic opioids are seized, and ensuring out-of-hours resources are available to respond to incidents around the clock. More than 20,600 police officers now carry naloxone daily in the UK, the department adds, and have administered it more than 1,200 times since 2019. There are now 32 police forces in the UK either using or piloting naloxone, with another 12 committed to either piloting or rolling out its use.
Although synthetic opioids are most commonly found in heroin supplies, they are also becoming ‘increasingly present’ in illicit sedatives and painkillers, the Home Office states. In March Public Health Scotland warned that ‘nitazene-type opioids’ had been identified in drug samples linked to a spate of ‘sudden collapse’ overdoses, while last year EMCDDA said that all but one of the seven new synthetic opioids reported to the EU’s early warning system were highly potent nitazenes – the highest number notified in a single year.
‘This advice will help save lives by ensuring local authorities know how to respond to incidents more quickly and efficiently, as will the vital rollout of naloxone across our police forces,’ said policing minister Dame Diana Johnson. ‘Already there are hundreds of examples of police officers carrying this lifesaving medicine. I am deeply grateful for their unwavering commitment to protect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.’
Local preparedness for synthetic opioids in England here