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“This is the largest public health crisis
in modern times with no end in sight,” Coppola wrote.
By Michael V. Cusenza
A leading membership organization that represents the state’s largest alcoholism and substance use prevention, treatment, recovery, research, and training providers recently called on New York lawmakers to divert revenue from a suggested tax on opioid manufacturers to prevention, treatment and recovery programs.
In his Executive Budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed to impose a surcharge on the sale of opioids, for the purpose of raising funds to address the heroin and opioid addiction crisis facing the state.
According to the Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers of New York State, the estimated $127 million in funding should go to expand and support services to address the issue.
“We are in an urgent situation,” ASAP Executive Director John Coppola wrote in his open letter to legislative leaders. “This is the largest public health crisis in modern times with no end in sight. In fact, we are moving backward in the fight to combat the opioid pandemic. We already know more people will die from heroin and opioids in 2018 than in 2017, just like 2017 was deadlier than the year before.”
However, as Coppola noted in his message to Albany, “Unfortunately, the actual budget request would divert the vast majority of those new funds for unrelated purposes, and remaining funds would support previously announced initiatives.”
Coppola went on to call this “a blueprint for failure.”
“As New York has done to combat previous public health crises including crack/cocaine, HIV/AIDS, and nicotine and cigarette smoking, we need a comprehensive plan coupled with a commitment of resources that matches the magnitude of the problem,” he wrote.
