Every single day there
is a new headline or another startling statistic.
Consider a small
sampling from the past several months:
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The
federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) identifies the abuse of prescription
medicine as one of America’s fastest-growing drug problems with nearly 15,000
people dying every year of overdoses due to prescription painkillers.
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The
CDC also notes a "grim milestone" that in 2015, more people died from
heroin-related causes than from gun homicides. Gun homicides outnumbered heroin
deaths by more than 5 to 1 less than a decade ago.
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The
Rockefeller Institute of Government reports that 3,009 New Yorkers died from a
drug overdose in 2015. That marks a 71-percent increase from 2010.
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There
has been a surge in American infants being born with symptoms of withdrawal
from heroin or strong prescription painkillers. The surge results from rising
drug use among women in rural areas, according to one study estimating that
approximately 21 percent of newborns in rural counties had withdrawal symptoms
in 2013, up from 13 percent in 2004.
Again, just a
small sample.
The New York
State Senate created a Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction in 2014, at a
time when local police departments and addiction centers, including many across
the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, were pointing to the alarming rise
in the availability and use of heroin and opioids.
Since 2014, while
the work of the task force has helped enact important new state-level laws and other
responses, the heroin crisis has grown increasingly urgent.
The input we have
received – and continue to receive – from the local front lines of this public
health and safety crisis have targeted the necessary responses. But we can’t
let up, not for one second, on the alarming threat of heroin, opioids, meth,
synthetic substances, bath salts and other illegal drugs continuing to spread
like a wildfire throughout our communities. The heroin and opioid crisis,
especially, poses far too great a risk to spiral out of control, overwhelming
and destroying individual lives along with local systems of health care, law
enforcement, criminal justice, and social services.The 2017-2018 state budget includes nearly $215 million in new funding to establish state-operated addiction treatment centers, enhance community-based providers, and expand other programs and services, including law enforcement.
Last week, the Senate continued to act. We approved a comprehensive legislative package, which I co-sponsor as a task force member, to build on existing state-level laws, programs, and services enacted over the past several years to strengthen awareness and education, prevention, and treatment and recovery efforts.
However, it also places
a particular emphasis on heroin traffickers and dealers. It includes, for
example, legislation to allow law enforcement to charge a drug dealer with
homicide, a class A-1 felony carrying a penalty of 15 to 25 years in prison, if
a person dies of an overdose of heroin or other opiate-controlled substance
sold by that dealer. The measure targets mid- to high-level drug suppliers who
profit from heroin sales.
Awareness and
education, and prevention and treatment are fundamental responses. Tough laws
and law enforcement are too, however, especially when it comes to heroin
traffickers and dealers. I agree that we will not arrest our way out of this
crisis, but we should not hesitate to throw the book at the pushers and
suppliers of these deadly drugs. Details on the entire legislative package are available on my Senate website, http://www.omara.nysenate.gov.
Earlier this
year, New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) President William E.
Cherry said, "As county leaders, we are entrusted with preserving the
health and safety of our communities. It is our duty to do whatever we can to
help break the cycles of addiction, overdose, and death that have taken hold in
so many corners of this state."
What he said
applies across the board, at every level of government and in every community.
It is our duty to do whatever we can.
