More Treatment Funding, Stricter Laws: Two Different Ways to Solve Hudson Valley Drug Epidemic

New York lawmakers are pursuing different ways to try to solve a growing drug problem in the state.

Three state senators—George Amedore, Terrence Murphy and Robert Ortt—want to have legislation enacted to allow law enforcement officials to charge a drug dealer with homicide if the heroin or opiate-controlled substance they sell causes an overdose death.

What preceded the senators’ legislation were the deaths of 23 people in Erie County over an 11-day period beginning Jan. 29.

The overdoses were believed to have been caused by a batch of heroin laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opiate which can be 50 times stronger than heroin.

Murphy, R-Yorktown, said in a statement that heroin now affects the rich and the poor.

“We need to protect our families through more stringent legislation that seeks to punish drug dealers peddling their poison,” he said.

“If we are serious about winning the war on drugs, the Assembly needs to act,” Murphy said.

The legislation—named Laree’s Law—was passed overwhelmingly by the state Senate last year, but the Assembly failed to bring it to a vote.

Murphy added that of the 17 pieces of legislation the Senate passed in 2015, only one became a law.

On the national level, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, recently paid a visit to a Tarrytown substance abuse prevention agency in an effort to get the federal government to back up its rhetoric with money to fight the exploding heroin, opioid and prescription drug epidemic.

Schumer said that in Westchester County alone, drug overdose-related deaths increased by 117 percent between 2010 and 2013.

Speaking at Student Assistance Services, the senator said the opioid and heroin abuse crisis in the Hudson Valley is a symptom of a national emergency.

“All the rhetoric in the world isn’t going to help expand access to Nalaxone,” which can counter the effects of a heroin or opioid overdose, “to prevent overdose deaths, and endless Senate speeches and authorization bills won’t mean more beds at treatment centers to curb addiction,” Schumer said.

“It’s time for Congress to walk the walk and pass the desperately needed emergency funding that will really make a difference in this fight,” he said.

Original versions of the Murphy-Laree’s Law article and the Schumer article can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlinks.

Patch’s Lanning Taliaferro contributed to this article.