Addiction Treatment Referral through Local Police

To the Editor: Schiff and colleagues (Dec. 22 issue) 1 present data from the first year of the Angel Program that was developed by the Gloucester, Massachusetts, Police Department to assist persons with opiate addiction. This program helps direct persons to treatment who might otherwise follow a pat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe New England journal of medicine Vol. 376; no. 10; p. 999
Main Authors Wood, Stephen P, Schiff, Davida M, Drainoni, Mari-Lynn, Rosenbloom, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Massachusetts Medical Society 09.03.2017
Subjects
Detoxification
Drug addiction
Humans
Mental Disorders
Police
Referral and Consultation
United States > US
Massachusetts
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Summary:To the Editor: Schiff and colleagues (Dec. 22 issue) 1 present data from the first year of the Angel Program that was developed by the Gloucester, Massachusetts, Police Department to assist persons with opiate addiction. This program helps direct persons to treatment who might otherwise follow a pathway leading to incarceration. One troubling data point is the number of previous detoxification attempts. A total of 81% of the participants had previously received treatment for detoxification at least once, and 31% had more than six detoxification attempts. These data indicate that the current method of detoxification is not effective. 2 , 3 Few patients . . .
Bibliography:SourceType-Other Sources-1
content type line 63
ObjectType-Correspondence-1
ObjectType-Commentary-2
ISSN:0028-4793
1533-4406
DOI:10.1056/NEJMc1700537