LI pol rips Joe on drugs and border

A top Long Island leader Monday called on President Biden to secure the southern border to prevent fentanyl from flowing into the US, as he unveiled a new, $15 million initiative aimed at saving lives.

As drug overdoses ravage his community, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman announced the four-year plan to help treat and curb fentanyl-fueled addictions and deaths.

But he says the plan won’t be fully effective without also cracking down on the supply of the potent opioid coming in from Mexico and overseas.

“Nassau police do an excellent job. Our cops are out there. They’re making arrests. They’re doing what they have to do,” Blakeman, a Republican, said at an emotional press conference attended by the mother of an OD victim, as well as Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder.

“But fentanyl is flooding our communities and it’s coming in through our borders, it’s coming from overseas. And I’m calling on President Biden . . . to protect our borders. Protect it from all the fentanyl that’s coming in.”

Fentanyl, an opioid 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, was detected in 80% of drug overdose deaths in New York City in 2021 and was the most common substance involved in fatal ODs for the fifth year in a row.

More than 2,800 New Yorkers died of a drug overdose in the city — the vast majority involving fentanyl — over a 12-month span ending in July 2022, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Nassau County, the medical examiner’s office reported 270 OD deaths in 2021, 190 of which were from fentanyl.

“This isn’t about politics. It’s about the money going to programs and going to health-care facilities that have this track record of getting results, of saving people’s lives,” the Nassau County executive said of the new initiative.

At the Mineola press conference, Carole Trottere, a Long Island mother who lost her 30-yearold son, Alex, in 2018 to heroinfentanyl poisoning, warned parents to get their heads out of the sand.

“I’d like to plead to the parents out there and say you can’t be in denial about this crisis,” she said.