Federal funds to boost state opioid fight

Connecticut will receive $22 million in federal grant money over two years to boost its efforts fighting the opioid crisis, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Friday.

The money will be used to buy 10,000 doses of naloxone — a medicine also called Narcan used to reverse opioid overdoses — and distribute them throughout the state. It will fund six substance abuse clinics around the state and medication-assisted treatment in shelters and on the streets in New Haven and another city, to be determined, said Diana Lejardi, public information officer for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

It will increase the number of on-call recovery coaches in hospitals and give treatment to addicted prisoners before and after their release.

“Far too many Connecticut families continue to be affected by the opioid crisis,” Malloy said in a statement. “Far too many lives have been cut short.”

Connecticut is among the top ten states with the highest rates of opioid-related overdose deaths, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Accidental drug intoxication death in Connecticut jumped to 1,038 in 2017, from 357 in 2012 — the first time the total had hit more than a thousand, the state’s office of the chief medical examiner said.