A man in Pennsylvania has been captured on police video allegedly injecting heroin on public transportation in the middle of the day in the Township of Upper Darby.
Police say the video shows a man injecting what’s believed to be heroin into his right arm last Thursday, on a crowded bus, before he falls out of his chair unconscious.
After police arrive they revive the man with an anti-opiate spray called Narcan. The man was sent to hospital for treatment and is now facing a drug possession charge.
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Asked why police shared the video, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said he hopes it can shine light on the desperate situation heroin addicts are facing.
“Heroin in the United States has reached in my opinion, epidemic proportions. To shoot up in broad daylight on a bus that has 30 or 40 people in it, is insane.”
In the U.S., the rate of heroin overdoses has quadrupled since 2002, according to American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And more people died of drug overdoses in 2014 than any other year on record.
Chitwood said the video also shows how Narcan, a drug which has the ability to reverse the effects of an overdose, can save lives, but is not enough to deal with the country’s heroin epidemic.
“Narcan only saves lives. It doesn’t help with the addiction. The resources are not available to treat this epidemic. I believe the federal government has to step up.”