Montville — As opioid overdoses take the lives of more and more people around the region, Montville’s police department and town officials are working to finish a policy that would allow officers to carry the overdose-reversal drug naloxone hydrochloride in their cruisers.

Montville wouldn’t be the first town in the region to add naloxone — also known by the brand name Narcan — to its officers' “toolbox” for dealing with the effects of an addiction crisis.

About a half-dozen local police departments carry it, and soon Montville officers will, too.

But before the town’s police can join the town firefighter and emergency medical personnel in carrying Narcan to emergency calls, the Town Council must approve a policy written by Lt. Leonard Bunnell and Montville’s resident state trooper Sgt. Mark Juhola.

Before that, the town's Public Safety Commission gets a chance to recommend the policy.

And before that, the policy needs a thumbs-up from Kyle McClaine, the emergency medical services director at The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich and co-chairman of the Connecticut EMS Medical Advisory Committee.

“If we are going to deliver a medicine, then we have to meet certain criteria,” Juhola said Tuesday.

McLaine suggested that the department get certified as a supplemental first responder, which would mean training all 22 officers to be emergency medical responders or above.

Twelve officers are already emergency medical responders, leaving ten to get trained, he said.

“The whole point is to have a standard level of care,” Juhola said. “We need to follow (state Office of Emergency Medical Services) standards, just like we would police standards in an arrest.”

The new tool might take some work to adjust to, but Juhola said Narcan is just another “tool in the toolbox” for officers to help those in need.

“Sometimes we have to wear a different role, which requires different training and different pieces, and we can do that,” he said.

Representatives from Montville’s police union have also weighed in on the policy, suggesting to members of the public safety committee that the policy call the drug by its brand name, Narcan, not the generic name of the drug, naloxone, among other changes.

But the policy needs to follow language outlined by the Office of Emergency Medical Services, Juhola said.

“If we’re going to be in a position where we’re going to dispense medicine, we’re going to need to follow the doctors’ recommendation,” he said.

“Sometimes it seems more complicated than it needs to be, and I wish it wasn’t,” he added. “But it is part of that process of vetting it. It’s important.”

Most Montville fire departments and paramedics carry Narcan, but Juhola said a police officer is often the first to the scene of an overdose, arriving minutes before the first paramedic.

“We want the officers to be able to respond…and do something, and not just stand there,” he said. “When you’re not breathing, it does make a difference.”

By October, the department may be required to carry Narcan anyway — a bill Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed last week requires cities and towns to ensure all first responders can carry and use drugs that reverse opioid overdoses.

Juhola said the town’s public safety commission will review a draft of the policy this month and then pass it to the Town Council for its approval.

The Southeastern Regional Action Council — a nonprofit that helps local municipalities address substance abuse and addiction — will then help the department get its first doses of naloxone and training for free.

“I would love to see that (happen),” Juhola said. “It becomes that sort of buy-in to make sure we’re taking care of the people we’re responding to.”

m.shanahan@theday.com