Give Butler County commissioners credit for having the right message, but failing marks for execution when it comes to whether or not county employees should be trained in the use of the anti-overdose medication naloxone.

Less than a week after the board put in place a new policy requiring all county employees to receive the training, they saw pushback from Assistant District Attorney Ben Simon, who filed a grievance over the edict and said he would refuse the mandate.

Simon said he believes the county’s new policy will enable and embolden drug users and called the mandate a violation of “personal rights and choices.” That’s a bit hyperbolic.

The policy doesn’t seek to make EMTs out of our 605 county employees. It only mandates education, not carrying or using the antidote. As for emboldening and enabling users: training county employees to spot overdoses and use Narcan will result in a rash of drug use and overdoses ... where? In or around government buildings? Please.

Still, Simon is right in calling the commissioners’ policy an overreach. Butler County’s government employees aren’t emergency responders. They haven’t taken oaths, like police, to protect people’s lives. It’s not right to use their employment to force medical training upon them.

It’s also problematic to create an uneven standard of emergency preparedness and education among employees — another undesirable effect of this policy. Narcan, like CPR and the portable defibrillators often available these days, save the lives of people experiencing life-threatening medical events — whether that’s an overdose, choking on a piece of food, or an episode of cardiac arrest. Yet training in two of those life-saving treatments — CPR and the defibrillators — is voluntary under county policy.

All that said, the message behind this policy — that Butler County believes all lives are worth saving — is a commendable one. We would hope that most of the 605 Butler County employees would agree, and jump at the chance to learn the skills that might help save someone’s life one day. Ultimately, however, that should be their decision to make, and to make freely.

Commissioners seem to know that they are fighting for more than just the lives of opioid and heroin addicts. They’re fighting to change people’s hearts and minds when it comes to addiction and addiction treatment.

Education is a big part of that effort, and so the push to get county workers involved in these trainings is understandable. But getting someone to agree with you when it matters is often more complicated than just ordering them to sit through a 15-minute class.