In rural Carter County, Tenn., health officials have embraced a strategy for stemming addiction: Teaching children as young as 6 how to administer Narcan, a nasal spray that can stop an opioid overdose from being fatal.

A lot of campaigning around drug-related deaths in Scotland is focusing on the need for safe consumption rooms. These should absolutely be introduced where there’s an obvious need – like in Glasgow or Dundee – but I fear they are being framed as a silver bullet that will solve this crisis in one clean shot. In reality, our response needs to be much broader.

Health chiefs hope to provide heroin overdose-blocking drugs in all first aid kits in response to North Ayrshire’s drugs death crisis. Cabinet member for Health and Social Care Cllr Robert Foster said it is to be recommended that all first aid kits are updated to provide the life-saving drug in response to the high number of drug deaths.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are considering equipping frontline officers with the drug naloxone, which is used to reverse the effects of opiods. Police in Scotland the West Midlands have already adapted the technique as part of their toolkit.

Anti-overdose drug naloxone has been in clinical use since the 1970s but not always where it’s needed most. The Guardian’s Jamie Grierson visited Redcar in North Yorkshire where a group of former drug users provide at-risk people with kits that could save their lives. (Guardian Podcast).

A drug which can reverse the effects of an overdose will be trialled by police in Wales. The North Wales force will train 12 officers in Flintshire to administer Naloxone via a nasal spray in a six-month trial starting in March. Police and crime commissioner Arfon Jones said for officers protecting the public and their welfare it was another “tool in their armoury”.