Encounters with Police

We got smack [heroin] and then my girlfriend had a shot, $50 worth, and overdosed. And I think they called an ambulance at that stage, and I had half of what she had and I overdosed. The ambulance was on its way [to us], and my boyfriend at the time was trying to resuscitate me […] And in the meantime, my girlfriend’s come to and she’s okay, and the ambulance arrives and gave me a shot of naloxone. [So I came to after overdosing] and the ambulance left. I think someone had said to my girlfriend [during] the second call [to triple zero], yeah, ‘This is the second ambulance you’ve called for tonight. If we hear from you again, you know, we’ll have to send the cops around or something.’ So we cleared out the entire house and went up around the corner to a friend who was a dealer, and we all just crashed there for the night. So that was pretty harrowing.

My husband usually has one [take-home naloxone kit] in his bag. It’s like a ‘you are ready to [go] kit’. But we’ve been in trouble. The weird thing about it, we’ve been in trouble with the police for holding it. […I have been searched by police in public] more than once, but it happened most recently, like, three months ago. I literally got caught and I got my whole bag tipped out, and they asked what it was. They actually took me back to the police station so they could call a doctor up to prove that that [the] script [I had in my bag] was naloxone and it wasn’t anything else. […] Yeah, that’s why I’m not carrying it. My husband carries it because he still thinks, ‘Well, I don’t care if they’re going to reprimand me’ […] The police need to broaden their horizons on knowing what naloxone is and understanding that it’s actually beneficial and helping people, [rather] than abusing us for holding it.

We all left the class at the same time and we all got pulled over at the same time and there was just this one jack [police officer] and everyone realised that this jack was just [questioning] me. We all handed our cards over and [take-home naloxone] kits over and that. Then, a few days later, we get them back at [the community health service that gave us the naloxone] and [this happened] just because of this one anal jack, pretty much.

One of the main concerns I used to have about carrying [take-home naloxone] on me personally is police, a lot of the time, especially if they’re new recruits or new to this area, will stop [you] and one of the questions they ask is, ‘Do you have anything in your backpack you shouldn’t have?’

I respond with, ‘There are items in my backpack that I believe you don’t think I should have, but I’m entitled and authorised to carry them.’

‘Oh yeah, like what?’

‘Well, I’ve got sterile sharps, I’ve got used sharps and I have a naloxone administration kit.’

They generally ask to see it, I pull it out, show them and, initially, as I said, when the naloxone training programs were first being started, police were unsure about it and would confiscate them. They have now given an assurance […] that if they come across us and they see us with a naloxone kit, they will not be confiscating them any more.

I’ve been pulled over once and they’ve said, ‘What’s that?’ and I’ve said, ‘Naloxone.’ One cop knew what it was and just went, ‘That’s a good idea.’ And the other one didn’t really know, and he was like, ‘What is it?’ and I told him, and he said, ‘Well, you shouldn’t be carrying that around.’ And I said, ‘Well, there’s my card saying I’ve done the training and it’s not illegal. If you want to take some to test it, you’re quite welcome, but leave me with the other two vials in case something happens.’

I get stopped a lot for carrying a backpack. I do a lot of weird hours and the [police] might see me on the streets three or four times on four different sides of town. They pull me over and have a look through my bag to see if there’s any contraband. They ask you if you’re carrying any sharps, so I tell them straight out, ‘Yes, and I have a naloxone kit’ […] A lot of them have pulled me over and I’ve explained to them that it reverses effects of opiates. I’ve got a card saying I’ve been trained in it and I’m allowed to have it and they leave me alone and no hassles after that.

I do have a [criminal] record and […] I was on the side of the road in a car when the police stopped, and they ended up searching the whole car. They [saw the naloxone in my bag] and asked what it was. Because I’ve got two pieces of paper in there, one of them is how to give naloxone, so when they saw that, they just put it away. They didn’t worry about it any more […] They thought they were on to something at first and then realised it wasn’t anything illegal and I had literature in there […] so when they saw that it was an actual naloxone kit, they sort of put it down and, by that stage, they already knew that the only things in there were naloxone ampoules.