Mayor Eric Adams.
Picture: Ed Reed/Mayoral Pictures Workplace
A deadly overdose happens in New York Metropolis each 3 hours. The opioid epidemic is a rising public well being disaster that we should finish.
It has inflicted an excessive amount of heartache in our metropolis. Producers and distributors have hooked hundreds of New Yorkers on opioids and different painkillers. They’ve raked in billions of {dollars} — profiting off of dependancy and tragedy whereas folks’s lives have been misplaced and destroyed.
Final 12 months was the deadliest 12 months on file for overdose deaths in our metropolis. In 2022 alone, over 3,000 New Yorkers died of a drug overdose — a 12 p.c improve from 2021 — and fentanyl overdoses made up 81 p.c of these overdoses.
I do know the destruction that overdose epidemics could cause. I used to be a police officer throughout the Eighties, and I noticed how firsthand how crack devastated our communities. We can’t sit again and let what occurred to prior generations occur to our households. That is the second the place we should do every part in our energy to confront and defeat the opioid disaster.
Due to the efforts of New York Legal professional Common Letitia James, who secured billions of {dollars} from opioid producers and distributors, we’re investing in our neighborhoods throughout the 5 boroughs to struggle this epidemic and save lives.
Simply final week, our administration introduced $12 million in new funding for Staten Island, which has been hit exhausting by the overdose epidemic. Staten Island accounts for 5 p.c of all overdose deaths citywide and has town’s second highest overdose charge of the 5 boroughs. We listened to the issues of leaders on the bottom in Staten Island, and we’re proud that this vital funding will make an actual distinction, and guarantee extra New Yorkers can stay lengthy, wholesome lives with their family members.
This work goes hand-in-hand with the important steps we now have already taken to fight the opioid disaster. Earlier this 12 months, we launched our psychological well being agenda, which outlines how we’ll increase entry to high-quality hurt discount providers, and we set a daring objective of decreasing overdose deaths by 15 p.c by 2025.
We additionally held the first-ever two-day summit on the fentanyl disaster that introduced elected leaders, public well being officers, and regulation enforcement professionals from throughout the nation to New York Metropolis to work in direction of a nationwide technique to fight fentanyl overdoses.
And thru intensive enforcement, we now have made a whole bunch of arrests of drug sellers and traffickers. Along with expanded enforcement, we now have elevated our help for prevention, hurt discount, substance use dysfunction remedy, and restoration packages citywide, and have distributed greater than 200,000 Naloxone kits and tens of hundreds of fentanyl and xylazine take a look at strips.
It’s devastating to lose a beloved one to an overdose. It impacts your loved ones, pals, and group. It impacts this metropolis. Each overdose demise is a tragedy, however each overdose can also be preventable.
We can’t repeat the errors of the previous, and with these vital funds, we’re tackling the opioid disaster head on. Collectively, we’re going to scale back overdoses, save lives, and defend our communities.
