Revealed: Why Greater Manchester Police refuses to give life-saving overdose drug to officers

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) says it refuses to give its officers the choice to carry naloxone – a drug which can reverse opioid overdoses – because of objections over whether it has really saved lives and a belief officers would not need to use it, while slamming a push to “press naloxone onto UK forces”.

Naloxone is a drug, often carried as a nasal spray, which can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

GMP is one of just two forces, along with Suffolk Constabulary, where a decision has been taken not to allow police officers or staff to carry naloxone, according to a recent Home Office study – though GMP claims “it is not quite the case we are an outlier”.

As drug deaths reach record levels and synthetic opioids claim lives, Big Issue has been reporting on GMP’s refusal to roll out the drug.

The force had remained tight-lipped about why, explaining it is a “complex” decision. But a letter, seen by Big Issue, has revealed the real reasoning behind the refusal.

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It claims officers in areas of Greater Manchester with high drug use said “there has not been a single occasion where they would have reached for naloxone had it been available to them”, and that “we believe some UK forces who have trialled naloxone have seen no use of the product during the timeframe”.

Tom Morrison, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheadle, said that he was “disappointed” that GMP continues to resist offering naloxone to officers on the front line.

“The reality is that police officers often arrive at the scene of an overdose before paramedics, and withholding a safe, legal, lifesaving tool in that context raises serious questions”, he said. Morrison called for a well-managed trial to get evidence specific to Manchester, and said other forces had not found the barriers cited by GMP to be insurmountable.

After it emerged a trial of naloxone by GMP, promised last year, was cancelled, Morrison said the force had created an expectation it “would be part of the solution to rising opioid harms”. He added: “The current refusal to even trial naloxone on the front line appears at odds with those public commitments.”

Kate Green, the deputy mayor of Greater Manchester, said she “encourages the force to allow its officers to carry naloxone”, continues to keep the matter under “close review”, and remains “in dialogue with the chief constable about it”.

Naloxone has been branded a “miracle cure”, waking somebody up from a potentially fatal overdose, and has been credited with cutting opioid deaths by 14% in US states where it has been rolled out. Paramedics in the UK administer thousands of doses of naloxone every month, but as opioid deaths rise the government has led a push to equip frontline police officers with the drug.

The details were revealed in a letter from Lee Rawlinson, the force’s chief resources officer, responding to Morrison after he raised the issue on the back of Big Issue reporting.

“We feel our response is entirely proportionate at this time,” Rawlinson wrote. 

The force argued naloxone would not be an effective weapon against the danger of synthetic opioids such as nitazenes, saying GMP’s medical adviser had advised “the level of naloxone required in synthetic opioid cases is likely a much greater dose than officers would carry and the patient would require ongoing careful monitoring by a doctor”. Instead, the letter said that “good basic life support”, delivered with a pocket mask, bag vale mask or face shield, would keep an overdose patient alive without naloxone until ambulance crews arrived.

It also said the force had evidence from a team dealing “primarily in target areas of high drug use”, who said in the last year “there has not been a single occasion where they would have reached for naloxone had it been available to them”.

Some 32 forces carry naloxone – meaning some police officers or staff are carrying naloxone, either full time or as a trial. A further seven have committed to rolling out naloxone, while a further five have agreed to implement it or agreed to a pilot. It is just Greater Manchester, along with Suffolk, listed by the Home Office as forces where a decision has been taken not to allow police officers or staff to carry naloxone. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the decision whether to carry naloxone is up to an officer. Both GMP and Suffolk make naloxone available in custody – though GMP say this is administered by healthcare professionals rather than police officers.

“We believe some UK forces who have trialled naloxone have seen no use of the product during the timeframe,” GMP’s letter said, citing a difficulty in clarifying whether naloxone had actually saved lives when used by police. “A number of factors may have contributed to the ‘positive’ result and therefore we believe the data is statistically subjective and not clinical based,” Rawlinson wrote.

Between June 2019 and December 2024, police officers used naloxone 1,232 times. South Wales Police said its officers had used it 134 times in situations they deemed life-threatening.

Morrison said GMP’s justification “risks overlooking the unpredictable nature of overdoses, including synthetic opioids like nitazenes, which can act quickly and require an immediate response”, and that any response which stabilised a patient “could make the difference between life and death”.

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