“…We urge law enforcement departments to reconsider their policies to force overdose victims to the hospital when state or local policies or laws do not mandate this practice. Although there could be some benefits from transporting people who have just overdosed to emergency departments that have robust recovery support, medication-assisted treatment (e.g., buprenorphine induction), and other harm reduction programs (Chen et al,2020;Collins et al, 2021;Curran et al,2021;D'Onofrio et al, 2015;Herring et al,2021), most emergency rooms do not offer culturally competent services for people who have overdosed (Bergstein et al,2021;Biancarelli et al,2019;Chan Carusone et al,2019;Reddy et al,2021). However, the continued demonstrated public health efficacy of naloxone "take home programs" (McDonald et al,2017) point to how first responder "leave behind" naloxone programswhich involve providing kits on scene to the overdose victim, family, and/or friends of the person who overdosed-could greatly mitigate future overdoses and show early promise for connecting victims to treatment (Scharf et al,2021).…”