Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday said the city will provide $22 million annually over the next several years in an effort to combat opioid addiction.
Speaking at Richmond University Medical Center on Staten Island, de Blasio said the money will go toward saving at least 400 lives by 2022. The new funds will bring the total amount the city spends to reduce opioid overdose deaths to $60 million annually.
The money will go to HealingNYC, which was launched by de Blasio last year, to fund several efforts: expanding peer intervention programs to all 11 of the city’s emergency departments by the end of the year; and increasing the distribution of naloxone (a drug that can reverse an overdose).
De Blasio said the city is committed to taking away the stigma of addiction. Since HealingNYC was launched in March 2017, the mayor’s office said the city has distributed nearly 100,000 naloxone kits and plans to have the FDNY distribute 5,000 more annually starting this summer.
“It has to be stopped once and for all,” de Blasio said. “The only fault is in not acknowledging it and acting on it.
“We all know this is a problem all over the city… and what’s so shocking is it knows no boundaries,” he added. “We’re all shocked by the intensity of this crisis… but we know the tools we have started to use are working.”
In 2016, there were 437 more drug overdose deaths than in 2015, the increase driven by fentanyl. De Blasio said on Monday the city is beginning to see progress in reducing deaths, but it will be a long road.
“If we want to end this epidemic we must all be part of the solution, every one of us,” said First Lady Chirlane McCray, who has often spoken about mental health and addiction. “The bottom line is people suffering from addiction need our help and support.”
McCray said there isn’t one root cause for addiction, and there isn’t a single way to treat it.
President Donald Trump was also slated to unveil a plan on Monday to fight opioid-related deaths, which was expected to include seeking the death penalty for drug dealers, according to reports.
De Blasio said he disagrees with the death penalty and added that “you can’t arrest yourself out of the opioid crisis.”
