By C1 Staff
BARNSTABLE COUNTY, Mass. — A county jail in Massachusetts is offering a drug to help inmates fight addiction, but it comes with a steep price tag.
The Barnstable County Jail offers injections of naltrexone to inmates who are addicted to opioids from Vicodin to heroin, according to MSN News. The program started in April of 2012.
The drug blocks receptors in the brain, reducing cravings and barring users from getting high for about 25 days at a cost of nearly $1,000 a shot.
Though corrections officials and drug addiction programs say programs like this could help fight against opioid addiction, the programs are still in early stages. More time is needed to determine the success of naltrexone shots over the long haul.
While judges are increasingly sentencing drug-addicted offenders to naltrexone programs, Barnstable officials say its “re-entry program” is the first voluntary program in the country. Their program has been the model for similar efforts in Illinois, Missouri, Maine and elsewhere.
The jail recently released data showing that out of more than 1000 inmates who have gone through the program at Barnstable, 21 percent have been re-incarcerated.
The national average is 70 percent of former inmates being rearrested within three years of their release from prison. Fifty-seven percent of those arrests take place within the first year.