By Patrick Baron

BLOOMINGTON – As the opioid crisis continues to plague the nation, law enforcement and health officials in McLean County are forming a plan to battle opioid addiction on the homefront.

Bloomington Police Department Public Information Officer Elias Mendiola said as overdoses have increased in the city, officers have had to become equipped to help people who may be overdosing.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase thoughout the years of prescription meds across the board, not just opioids,” Mendiola explained. “In the last, I believe it’s been three years, we’ve started carrying the NARCAN spray.”

Mendiola said Bloomington Police Chief Brendan Heffner attended the meeting with other county officials to form a plan on how to combat opioid use and treat addiction more efficiently.

“They are trying to discover with different law enforcement officials, with doctors, pharmacists, attorneys, and treatment specialists, to have the first ever McLean County summit on opioid addiction,” said Mendiola. “So how to treat and prevent the opioid addition.”

County officials such as McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage and McLean County Coroner Kathy Davis were also present at the meeting. Speaking with WJBC’s Scott Laughlin, Sandage said the meeting allowed different perspectives on the opioid crisis to be heard, which could lead to various plans on how to combat the issue.

“Some communities have, it’s called ‘safe passage program’, where people can come in and turn their drugs in and say ‘I want to go to treatment’, and we can facilitate that,” Sandage explained. “We think we’re also going to add a component that some other districts are using, where you have a law enforcement officer, a treatment provider, and a social worker go out within 24 hours to people who have overdosed and try to get them into treatment and try to prevent that from happening again.”

Patrick Baron can be reached at [email protected].