DULUTH — The St. Louis County Jail now offers opioid antidote kits to inmates when they're released, the only jail north of the metro area taking such measures to avoid overdose deaths.
The kits containing naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan, came from the Steve Rummler Hope Network in St. Paul and will be issued to those enrolled in a substance use disorder treatment program while incarcerated.
Jail is a place of abstinence that can lead to "an extremely high risk" of overdose upon discharge for someone with a substance use disorder, said Alicia House, executive director of the Hope Network.
"Tolerance is no longer there," she said, increasing the chances of overdosing — and many have lost their insurance and have no way to obtain the life-saving substance. "It really gives them the best chance of success, whatever that means to them at that point."
Statewide, opioid overdose deaths have tripled since 2010. Naloxone is an antidote that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose.
A May 2021 St. Louis County Jail survey showed that more than 60% of inmates said they had used opioids, most of them daily. Nearly 40% considered themselves addicted. The number of countywide overdoses in 2018 was 151, which more than doubled in 2021 to nearly 400. From November 2021 through July, 245 overdoses resulted in 27 deaths, but 202 lives were likely saved by the use of naloxone, according to figures from the Lake Superior Violent Offender Task Force.
The idea is to be proactive, said Jason Lukovsky, undersheriff of the St. Louis County Sheriff's Office.
"Upon release from jail, they're maybe in a state where they don't know where to go for resources," he said, "and are in a vulnerable moment. If these kits can give them some sort of hope, it will enable them to battle substance use disorder."
