ON EVERY CORNER? –
Jan. 29, 2023 – There is, on average, a death a week from opioids in Vine Grove and surrounding Hardin county – not atypical for a region hard hit by the worst drug epidemic in US history. Mattingly thought it would be a good idea if everyone who knew someone addicted to the drugs had naloxone on hand. But how to get what was technically a prescription drug into the hands of the general public?
Watching the news one evening, the police chief was struck by a report about a hospital in Indiana installing a vending machine to dispense naloxone for free and with no questions asked.
Within months, Mattingly had won the support of the city’s mayor and put in place Kentucky’s first naloxone vending machine, repurposed with a disabled payment function from the same kind that dispense chocolate bars and cans of soft drinks, in an alcove outside Vine Grove police department.
