The Chesterfield County Jail is reportedly set become the first in the country to use a detox device to help inmates recover from opioid withdrawal symptoms by sending electrical impulses to the user’s brain.
According to its manufacturer, the Masimo Bridge device is “a small electrical nerve stimulator device that contains a battery-powered chip and wires that are applied around a patient’s ear in a short, non-surgical, in-office procedure, providing five days of continuous relief” from withdrawal symptoms by sending electrical impulses to parts of the brain associated with opioid withdrawal.
Chesterfield County Sheriff Karl Leonard told ABC 3 News the devices will provide relief for inmates, while other jail staff said they could give fugitives an incentive to surrender.
“What people don’t understand is a lot of people suffering from addiction continue to use drugs not to get high,” Leonard reportedly explained. “They continue to use drugs out of fear of going into withdrawal if they ever stop.”
Another official at the jail told the outlet that the device would encourage fugitives to stop running from police.
“If we have a device, and people can know that and come here, we can use this device to help them and, I think, take one of those barriers away from turning themselves in,” Director of Mental Health Kerri Rhodes told ABC 3 News.
She claimed, “People tell us all the time ‘I wanted to turn myself in but couldn’t go through withdrawal.’”
Though the Masimo Bridge device was criticized in a 2017 article that questioned its efficacy and the consequences to addicts of making false promises of withdrawal relief, a 2023 study published in Pain Management Nursing found the device gave users “statistically and clinically significant” relief.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares recently announced the receipt of $110 million in opioid settlement payments from drug manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies. He confirmed the commonwealth will use the money “to more effectively prevent, reduce, and treat addiction at a localized level.”
The device comes as a majority of Americans have soured on the pharmaceutical industry after years of negative publicity generated by the opioid epidemic and the industry’s response to COVID-19, with just one-third of the country reporting a positive view of pharmaceutical companies last year.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
