For Immediate Release: 6/8/2015 County Departments Partner to Provide Treatment to Incarcerated Addicts Seeking Treatment The County’s Department of Correction and Rehabilitation (DOCR) and Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) are partnering to provide direct services to offenders seeking addiction treatment for heroin and opiate abuse. DOCR is one of eight county jails in Maryland to receive grant funding from the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention (GOCCP). The voluntary program provides both a) monthly injections of Vivitrol, an extended-release medication which blocks the euphoric effects of heroin and other opioids and b) counseling and behavioral modification therapy both pre- and post-release from the Detention The use of opioids such as heroin has increased dramatically in Maryland over the past several years. According to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH), there was an 88 percent increase in heroin related deaths between 2011 and June 2014. Heroin deaths rose 300 percent nationwide between 2003 and 2013. There were 33 heroin related deaths in Montgomery County in 2014. “This is an important tool that Correction and DHHS will now have in place to support the transition from incarceration to community,” said Robert L. Green, DOCR director. “Expanding the use of Vivitrol to the re-entry population exiting the jail has been a goal of the partnership between the two departments for years, and it will provide a more comprehensive and enhanced treatment approach to a very vulnerable and high-risk population as they exit,” said Hardy Bennett, manager of Treatment Services for, DHHS’ Behavioral Health and Crisis Services. Inmates who enter the Detention Center and report using heroin and/or other opiates and agree to treatment with extended release Vivitrol and agree to continue treatment in the community at the Outpatient Addiction Services (OAS) program are identified by staff of the Jail Addiction Services (JAS) program and placed on an opiate withdrawal protocol that treats the symptoms of withdrawal. Once an inmate is released, treatment continues with OAS and Medicaid or private insurance is billed for treatment. The JAS program served 248 individuals in Fiscal Year 2014. The grant is expected to serve 25 clients in the first year. # # # Release ID: 15-227

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