Schumer slams plan to cut NYC drug funds
The federal government’s sudden decision to yank back millions designated for New York City to battle the opioid epidemic got a harsh rebuke from Sen. Chuck Schumer Sunday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told de Blasio officials and other leaders of big cities that they aren’t eligible for a pool of $350 million set aside as part of a 2018 bipartisan budget deal.
Instead, the money will be doled out to state offices — a new federal policy — according to a June 18 CDC conference call with government officials. New York City and other areas like Chicago and Los Angeles will get a lesser cut of the money under that setup, Schumer predicted.
“There is simply no good reason for the feds to play yo-yo with critical federal funds that New York needs to beat back and address the opioid epidemic,” Schumer said in a statement. “By playing this dangerous and irresponsible game with these dollars, the federal government is setting an aberrant precedent and making a big mistake all at the same time.”
De Blasio administration officials initially believed that some of the money would be headed to the Big Apple. It was going to be used to pay for part of its “Leave Behind” Naloxone program, where the city’s firefighters and emergency medical services would distribute 5,000 naloxone kits each year at homes where they are called to handle an overdose.
The program, set to launch at the end of the summer, is also expanding inpatient hospital interventions and the NYPD’s 24/7 triage desk.
Schumer is urging the CDC to reconsider.
“As some of the nation’s largest localities, which are facing some of the harshest impacts from the current addiction and overdose crisis, it is imperative that CDC provide fair funding allocation mechanisms that effectively address public health needs,” he said in a letter to the agency’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield.
The number of New York City drug related deaths has steadily risen over the past several years. There were 1,441 people who died of drug overdoses in the city, mostly from opioids, in 2017, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. That’s up from the 1,374 such deaths in 2016, records show.