Groton — Two community organizations have invited the chief of the Gloucester, Mass., police department to visit Groton next week to discuss a program that attacks the heroin epidemic by telling addicts if they bring in their drugs and ask for help, they will be guided to treatment rather than arrested.

Chief Leonard Campanello will give a presentation and take questions from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. Thursday, July 23, at Fitch High School, 101 Groton Long Point Road. The program is free and open to the public.

Town Councilor Joe de la Cruz, whose son is battling addiction, said four people have died in the last two weeks. On Monday night, he said a woman called and asked to get involved and help because her 21-year-old daughter lost her seventh friend in two years.

“That’s what these kids are dealing with these days and that’s how serious it is,” de la Cruz said during Tuesday night’s town council meeting.

Gov. Dannel Malloy will hold a bill-signing ceremony at 1 p.m. Wednesday in New London to mark the final passage of legislation to help curb heroin and prescription opioid abuse. The signing will take place at the Alliance for Living, 154 Broad St., and other state officials and advocates are expected to attend.

The program in Groton is open to all communities, and de la Cruz said he hopes community leaders and public officials from surrounding towns will attend. Community Speaks Out, the organization started by his wife, Tammy de la Cruz, hopes to set up a program in Groton where police make sure people struggling with addiction are safe, then contact the volunteer organization to get them to a rehabilitation center.

Community Speaks Out and the group Shine A Light on Heroin, formed to break the silence about heroin addiction, jointly set up the presentation at Fitch.

In Gloucester, police vowed that starting June 1, addicts who walked into the police station with drugs or drug paraphernalia and asked for help would not be charged. Instead, they would be assigned a volunteer "angel" to guide them through the detox and recovery process.

As of midnight July 7, the program had taken in 35 addicts and placed them all in treatment, according to the department’s Facebook page. The first person placed has been clean for more than 30 days, Chief Campanello wrote in an update on the page.

But he said the department would not judge anyone for a setback.

“Whether they are able to succeed or whether they relapse, we will be there,” he wrote. “We will help again and again and again until they no longer want help. Thus, they step through our doors and are in recovery for the rest of their lives. No matter what happens. We know there will be setbacks for people. We don't care. Come back.”

The number of heroin-related overdose deaths in Connecticut jumped by more than 86 percent between 2012 and 2014 — from 174 to 325.

d.straszheim@theday.com

Twitter: @DStraszheim