Judge Robert Peeler told Cynthia Fugate, a common pleas court judge in southwest Ohio's Warren County, that he is among those judges who are trying to lessen the heroin problem by providing treatment across the nation.
Peeler was reviewing the record of a twice-arrested heroin user. After reviewing her record, he offered her a deal that could save her life. Peeler told her that he does not find her a criminal, but would say that she is an addict. He thinks something is driving her to use heroin.
Even she also believed what Peeler told her. Peeler suggested Cynthia Fugate that he can order monthly injections of opiate-blocking drug Vivitrol for her, but only if she wants. In return, Fugate said that she really wants to be clean and wants to take injections.
It was only from last year that Peeler started researching about the drug treatment shots. He did so after a young woman died of a heroin overdose and she was at least the third heroin user who had stood before him in courtroom and later died.
Peeler thinks that seeing the increasing heroin-related deaths and crime, he thinks that the method is worth trying. He does not want people to die and trying the old methods would not derive any positive results.
Vivitrol made by Alkermes PLC of Ireland was used for alcohol problem. But after a Russian study, it was found to be effective for users of heroin, morphine and other opiate drugs. The drug helps in blocking heroin's effects on the brain.
Vivitrol is long lasting, said Mady Chalk from Philadelphia's Treatment Research Institute. "Patients return to their community having been detoxed, their systems have been emptied of the drugs; they return to environments that trigger all the things that one would expect", stated Chalk.
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