Getting methadone in jail gave a Connecticut heroin user a firmer foothold in recovery. But fewer than 1 percent of jails and prisons allow it.

NEW HAVEN - When Dave Mason left jail in October 2015 after his 14th criminal conviction, the odds were good that he would soon end up dead.

A man with a longtime heroin addiction, Mr. Mason was entering one of the deadliest windows for jailed users returning to the streets: the first two weeks after release, when they often make the mistake of returning to a dose their body can no longer handle.

PHOENIX - The Arizona Department of Corrections launched a new drug program this week which aims at fighting Opioid abuse head-on.

Some inmates, nearing the end of their time in prison, can now become eligible for a Vivitrol shot. Vivitrol is an injectable drug - taken once a month - that blocks the brain's Opioid receptors. The drug is designed to keep an Opioid user from having the ability to get high for roughly a month.

MANSFIELD - On a summer Friday night at the Richland County Jail, a Mansfield police officer brought in a 36-year-old Mansfield woman on a drunkenness charge.

Police and jail staff thought she'd probably just had a little too much to drink. They could smell the alcohol on her, and she couldn't stand up on her own.

She told jail staff her name and age and that she'd been in the jail before.

But when she was taken into the restroom on July 14, an officer could soon tell something was wrong, something more than just drunkenness.

Just before Northampton County Jail unveiled an anti-opioid antidote program this summer, staff at its work release facility in West Easton found an unresponsive inmate with blue-tinged skin.

The inmate, who had with a history of opiate use, was making gurgling sounds, breathing slowly and had pinpoint pupils - all signs of an opiate overdose, authorities say. Staff were able to quickly get the man to a hospital in time to reverse the overdose, but the incident highlighted the need for naloxone at the county’s jail and work release facilities, authorities say.

A Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded program provided by Advocates for Human Potential, Inc. (AHP) in partnership with Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC) and AdCare Criminal Justice Services (ACJS).

Opioid use disorders are highly prevalent among criminal justice populations. According to data from the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately half of state and federal prisoners meet criteria for substance use disorder. Even so, there has been reticence in criminal justice settings to using medications (methadone, buprenorphine, naltrexone) to treat opioid use disorders. In national surveys, utilization of these medications is very low in criminal justice settings, including drug courts, jails, and prisons.

New York City is launching an opioid recovery program that dispatches “recovery coaches” to emergency rooms to counsel overdose survivors on how to avoid a second brush with death.

NEW YORK - Five months into his job at a 24-hour walk-in behavioral health center here on Staten Island, Tarik Arafat has a new assignment. In three weeks, he’ll be on call for a nearby hospital to counsel people who have just been revived from an opioid overdose.

INDIANAPOLIS -- With a single drop of blood, hospitals and law enforcement may soon be able to detect concentrations of synthetic illicit drugs.

Modern street drugs found on the market such as Spice and K2 do not show up in regular urine drug screenings, and people continue to overdose on them. The drugs usually are not detected until after a person dies or authorities intercept the transportation of them. One IUPUI professor and his team are working to change that.

Marijuana is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in at least 28 states and the District of Columbia. But driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal no matter which state you’re in. To enforce the law, authorities need a simple, rigorous roadside test for marijuana intoxication.

Although several companies are working to develop marijuana breathalyzers, testing a person’s breath for marijuana-derived compounds is far more complicated than testing for alcohol.

A team of researchers has developed a simple paper-based test that can in a matter of seconds detect whether a person has recently been using cocaine.

The method can potentially be applied to a variety of substances. The researchers plan to make a business case for the technique as a safe, rapid and highly accurate method of running a variety of drug tests in the real world.