By C1 Staff
ARUNDEL COUNTY — The Anne Arundel County Detention Centers received $100,000 in grants in order to begin offering an injectable prescription drug to treat inmates dealing with drug addictions.
The Capital Gazette reports said that the funding will come from the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, and the program will begin at the Ordnance Road Correctional Facility.
In 2014, over 300 heroin and opioid overdoses occurred in the county, 48 of them fatal.
The grant will pay for the administration of naltrexone, commonly known as Vivitrol, which helps with the treatment of heroin or painkiller addictions. The drug is new to the market, having only been approved by the FDA in 2010.
Officials say Vivitrol has fewer regulatory restrictions limiting who can prescribe it, which makes it easier to dispense.
It does come with a cost of $1,000 per injection, which can be a downside.
The treatment will run parallel with existing treatment methods, such as methadone.