That goal is a daunting one given the depth of the national problem and the reality that the trend has been heading in the opposite direction.
With fatal drug overdoses at alarming levels in New York City, particularly from opiates like heroin, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed Monday to reverse the tide and reduce the number of deaths by 35 percent over five years through a combination of outreach, treatment and law enforcement.
The plan, alluded to in de Blasio’s state of the city address last month, would see the city spend as much as $38 million per year on a broad array of services, including expanded methadone and buprenorphine treatment for addicts; a focus at city hospitals on dealing with addiction and overdoses; aggressive prosecution of illicit opioid distributors and heroin dealers; and the distribution of medication to reverse heroin overdoses to all 23,000 city patrol officers.
The announcement, at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, comes as illicit and prescription opioids are driving a surge in fatal overdoses in New York City, and it follows efforts around the country to address an epidemic that the Drug Enforcement Administration last year said kills more people than firearms.
Indeed, the scourge of overdoses has for years been growing in intensity. De Blasio’s plan follows efforts at the state level by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman. The city has announced piecemeal efforts to address the emerging crisis, such as giving police officers the heroin antidote naloxone to use on overdose victims, and making it available more broadly through pharmacies without a prescription.
But like the mayor’s revised plan to fight homelessness, announced last week, the plan to address overdoses arrives deep into his term and years after the scope of the problem had been evident to addiction specialists, law enforcement and the grieving relatives of those who have fatally overdosed. The time frame for reducing overdoses extends to 2022, when de Blasio, who faces re-election this year, could be at the end of a second term.
“Each year, we’re driving down the number,” de Blasio said at the news conference announcing the plan. “Every single year that number should be going down.”
That goal is a daunting one given the depth of the national problem and the reality that the trend has been heading in the opposite direction.
Although the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has not finalized its 2016 figures, the city estimated that 1,300 people died from drug overdoses last year. And more than 1,075 of those died from opioid pain pills or opiates like heroin and its more powerful cousin fentanyl — up from 753 the year before.
“This is the highest ever recorded,” said Mary T. Bassett, the city’s health commissioner, who sat alongside de Blasio, “and 90 percent of the increase is related to heroin and fentanyl.”
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