Police Chief Speaks About His 24/7 Drug Drop-Off Program

Newtown Township Police Chief Henry Pasqualini explains how his 24/7 drug drop-off program works and offers more details about the collection of drug overdose and Narcan use police call data in response to a question from Supervisor John Mack. His remarks were made at the January 10, 2018, Board of Supervisors meeting.

I appreciate that the Chief's Call for Service Report (see below) now includes call numbers for overdoses and Narcan Use. Management guru Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying "you can't manage what you can't measure." So, these data are important.

As you may know, Mr. Resnikoff – Chief of Operations at the Squad – reported that the Squad’s response to opioid calls was up 58% in the first 8 months of 2017 compared to 2016 (for more on that, read "Newtown Ambulance Squad Seeks Additional Funding").

I’d just like to say one other thing related to this:

Pennsylvania Underestimates Death Due to Opioids by More Than Half! (Read about that here.) That’s the worst record of any state. It’s a disgrace that Chuck Kiessling - the president of the Pennsylvania Coroners Association - can’t tell us how many opioid overdose deaths the 67 members of his association handled last year. According to Mr. Kiessling, that data "isn’t going to impact the living." I’m here to say that those deaths matter and do have an impact on the living, especially the families of the victims.

 

Posted on 12 Jan 2018, 01:01 - Category: Opioid Epidemic