Cook County Jail is not just a place for people to wait out their court dates or sober up overnight, but it is also where they’re trying a program where they offer detox medication to addicts in custody who want to quit. One such person is Neila Rivera, 36, who began using heroin as a teenager. She had tried to quit many times, going through detox, only to fall back with drugs once she was out of the clinic. But now that Cook County Jail is offering buprenorphine to people like her, she is optimistic. “It gives me hope because every time I left Cook County Jail, I went straight to get high,” Rivera said. Now, when she leaves, perhaps this time she’ll stay clean and strong.
After Neila Rivera began using heroin as a teenager, she fell into a predictable and depressing pattern. She’d get locked up and go through detox, only to return to drugs as soon as she got out.
It’s a routine that has become more dangerous as heroin, now commonly mixed with powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl, has become more unpredictably potent: Studies show that people released from incarceration, their drug tolerance lowered from abstinence, are far more likely than others to overdose.
Rivera, 36, expects she will soon be released from the Cook County Jail. But this time, she hopes, will be different.
She is among about 100 Cook County detainees who are taking a medication called buprenorphine while they’re locked up. Buprenorphine and its close cousin methadone stave off withdrawal symptoms and curb the hunger for drugs because they, too, are opioids. Click Here to Continue Reading
If you’re in need of heroin detox here in Florida, contact us today to start your path – and do so before it becomes a court-ordered ordeal.
