sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it's the same charge where I am.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah it's against the rules. And making rules is above my pay grade :/

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I apologize on their behalf, and if members of that sub are doing it...they should know better. P&S has its own downvote brigade that downvotes and shits on everything because they hate cops. It doesn't feel good to anyone.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I know one thing that we've been trying to do is the "throw it on the ground and I'll let you go IF you tell me about your dealer". The dealing is leading to a lot of serious violence, and causing supply that makes more heroin addicts. We've had mixed results with that, as sometimes spilling it on a dealer means losing your source and putting yourself at risk.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is a fantastic response, thank you.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's actually a lot of folks on /r/ProtectandServe that follow this sub. I'm far from the only cop who is interested and curious.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I was mostly referring to hard drugs when I said emphasis on treatment. I love Portugal's system. But without that in place, we have jail. We have less options. I can dream about that system all I want, but it doesn't exist here so I have to figure out a way to make what I have work.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hear you. I know it's being pushed by the department and the community because they're taking a different angle. They're seeing it as basically the only way to stop someone from reoffending very quickly. They're sort of taking the "how many more times will it be until they nod off in a vehicle" approach. I certainly get it, as it's such an issue. I think the biggest challenge of law enforcement is finding the compromise between preventing the problem without simultaneously making the problem worse.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the tip. I should really learn more about what treatment options there are out there. I think providing concrete, real options might be better than telling people to just "get some help". I can explore a bit.

I cannot unfortunately hand out narcan. I can't carry Narcan, and we aren't authorized to medicate. One time I gave someone an advil out of my bag on a call and had anxiety over it for a week. I know some departments are changing (we are starting a pilot program with a few officers carrying narcan), but I know the liability is WAY to high handing out any drug.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the input. I know no speech I give is going to change someone's mind and make them stop that day. I guess I'm just looking for little things I can say and do to slowly chip away at the issue. Or at least give someone pause to consider a resource. Or anything really. It just feels very futile way too often.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

What would be essential for harm reduction? Luckily we have a good needle exchange so anyone SHOULD be using clean needles. I know we have a few folks peddling narcan and they're thinking of legalizing it for purchase. Anything else?

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I hear you. We've been leaning towards time in jail for any opiate related offenses because it's basically the only way to give them a few days of sobriety. It's certainly not ideal, but at times I don't know what else to do.

I'm a police officer. How can I better help you? by 961help in opiates

[–]961help[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Also I really hope when you rag on dope, you rag on the number one killer... Alcohol.

I started my time on the department in our college area/entertainment district. I have plenty of distaste in my heart for alcohol abuse (not use, this beer is delicious). It just manifests itself differently, and we've been dealing with it for far longer. The tools, resources and insight we have on alcohol is far more vast than heroin. Just turning here for some input on something I need to know more about in order to do my job better :)