Full Notification

May 21, 2019

Marietta Police announce creation of new ASSIST team

Thousands of Cities and Counties across America and across Georgia are being ravaged by an opioid epidemic causing high rates of addiction, drug overdoses and drug overdose deaths. Our community is not exempt from the epidemic, but with a rapidly growing amount of community support, the City of Marietta and our public safety partners have been working affirmatively to rescue the people who become addicted and save them from the cycle of addiction that, left unabated, will sooner or later take them from us. Difficult as it has been to impact the overall epidemic, evidence reveals we are making headway in the otherwise dismal scenario.

For the city of Marietta, our most effective strategy to effect the opioid addiction cycle has been to equip and train our police officers, fire fighters and emergency medical responder with Naloxone, a drug commonly known by the trade name Narcan® which is used to revive victims suffering from an opioid overdose. A review of our results for 2018 in the City of Marietta alone has found that between our police, fire and emergency medical provider, Metro Ambulance Service, we administered Narcan® to revive victims an even 100 times.  During the same period (2018) there were plus or minus 10 opioid deaths recorded for the City. While one death is one too many, we are encouraged by the overall results of our use of Narcan®.

In order to take a next step in Marietta’s efforts to fight the opioid epidemic, today we are announcing a new community outreach initiative called the “ASSIST Team.” The team will be a public/private partnership comprised of the Marietta Police Department, Marietta Fire Department, the Metro Ambulance Service and Davis Direction organization. The ASSIST Team will receive alerts whenever the police, fire or Metro ambulance service revive an individual using Narcan.

Within 24 hours of each alert, two plain clothes police officers will conduct a non-judicial visit to each surviving individual and, using their recent overdose experience, engage them in a conversation in an attempt to persuade them to seek treatment and recovery.  Whether they are receptive or not, the officers will leave them with a packet of information (provided by the Davis Direction) outlining options and available resources for seeking treatment and recovery. For those who are receptive or voluntarily willing to find the path to recovery, the ASSIST Team will remain in contact with addicts who are willing to meet and discuss recovery in a one on one conversation. Everyone’s identity will remain confidential.

As part of the ASSIST Team project, involved police officers and firefighters will receive sensitivity training from the Davis Direction in the vernacular of opioid addicts, so as not to use off-putting terms or trigger words and terms that may interfere with the desired dialogue. In addition the data relevant to all interactions and overdose cases will be tracked in order to evaluate the success of the ASSIST Team Project.  The ASSIST Team will led by Lieutenant Michael Goins of the Marietta Police Department who will coordinate with both our public and private partners.

Issuing Narcan to our officers saved lives, our NEXT step is to reach out to overdose survivors to break this painful cycle.  Evidence based policing is doing what works.