PEABODY -- Lost amid the uproar over the Sept. 11 holiday in the Peabody police contract was a drug testing policy that Mayor Michael Bonfanti has touted as one of the strictest in the state. Officers have been subjected to random tests on five occasions since the policy was implemented about a year ago. Seventy-five of the department's 100 sworn officers have been tested, some more than once, and none have tested positive, Chief Robert Champagne said. The contract calls for six rounds of a random screening each year. But a test is also triggered when an officer is promoted, is returning to work after being out for more than 90 days, or is in an accident, with a car or motorcycle, for example. Champagne also has the discretion to order a test if he has "reasonable suspicion" that an officer is using drugs. [continues 408 words]
More than a year before his arrest on drug charges, a concerned citizen warned Swampscott police that one of their own, Officer Thomas Wrenn, had a serious drug problem. Chief Ronald Madigan confronted Wrenn in January 2007 with the allegation and asked him to dispel it by taking a drug test. The 37-year-old from Nahant refused, and the chief couldn't do anything about it. The limitations of Madigan's authority were highlighted earlier this month when federal agents arrested Wrenn on charges of dealing prescription drugs, sometimes on duty. After his arrest, he admitted to authorities he had been using cocaine and Percocet. [continues 563 words]
A medication able to reverse the effects of a heroin overdose will be distributed next month on the North Shore as part of a state program aimed at reducing the number of drug-related deaths. CAB Health & Recovery Services of Danvers will be provided Narcan by the state Department of Public Health. Two doses of the medicine, which counteracts a potentially deadly overdose within minutes, will be included in kits given to heroin addicts. "We're thrilled that the Department of Public Health is doing this," said Kevin Norton, president of CAB. "It's one more tool in our toolbox that we get to use." [continues 530 words]
