TYRELL JONES OF New York Harm Reduction stresses the importance of making Narcan widely available.
Photo courtesy New York City Mayoral Photography OfficeNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced new measures to combat the opioid crisis in the Bronx, including $8 million for new mental and physical health personnel and additional funding for Bronx-based faith groups.”This is an epidemic that can be treated,” de Blasio said at a news conference on Nov. 28. “But we’re only going to do it with the people of the Bronx. We’re only going to do it if we get deep, deep into each community.”

According to city Health Department data, overdose deaths in the Bronx continued to increase in 2018 despite decreasing on Staten Island and in Manhattan, particularly among white New Yorkers. The Bronx has the highest rate and total number of overdoses in the city, the Mayor said. He said 363 Bronxites died last year in opioid overdoses.

“The Bronx has a history of dealing with some of the toughest challenges in this city but not getting the support it deserved,” de Blasio said. “And that is part of why we still have a lot of work to do here… We have found a strategy that’s starting to work [on Staten Island] and now we are moving those resources to the Bronx immediately.”

“I have to carry two bags of Narcan with me every morning,” Terrell Jones, Outreach and Advocacy manager for New York Harm Reduction Educators and a former user from Hunts Point, said. Jones said he has family members and friends that lost loved ones to opioid overdoses that could have been reversed. “If they had the education around harm reduction and Narcan, their loved one would be here today.”

Narcan is the most popular brand name for a drug call naloxone reverses overdoses. Often sold in the form of a nasal spray, de Blasio promised 15,000 new kits to the Bronx. Other city-funded programs for the Bronx-centric initiative include a $1 million ad campaign on the dangers of fentanyl, syringe and needle clean up, and providing prevention and treatment resources to faith and community organizations.

“We will work with trusted community partners to embed services into the fabric of the hardest-hit communities of the Bronx,” First Lady Chirlane McCray, attending the news conference, said. “The people who gather in this beautiful church every week, have so much power to change the culture of shame that prevents people from seeking help, and support them. We all do. We all have that power.”

One initiative the city is still waiting to implement are supervised injection sites, legally sanctioned medical facilities that would allow opioid addicts to safely and cleanly consume drugs. Operated and fully financed by nonprofit groups with city approval, trained medical professionals would be on site to administer overdose-counteracting drugs and provide treatment options for addicts.

“This is about saving lives. This is about health. This is a proven approach,” de Blasio said, citing successes in Canada, where fatal overdoses of those living near a facility dropped by 30 percent. “[The] largest cities in Canada use this and save lives and then get people to treatment.”

De Blasio said he is waiting on state approval for proposed facilities in three boroughs, including one in Longwood, but expects the go-ahead “relatively soon.” The biggest obstacle for supervised injection sites is the federal government, who have made clear they oppose the concept entirely.

“I want to be the first to say, it is a complex issue, there’s a lot to consider,” de Blasio said. “Obviously, we expect – it’s been quite public – that the federal government will attempt to obstruct overdose prevention centers. At that point, if that were to occur, we would take the federal government to court.”

The U.S. Justice Department said they would shut down any sites, with U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatening up to 20 years in prison for anyone who maintained “any location for the purpose of facilitating illicit drug use.”

Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark, sitting next to de Blasio at the news conference, held a different position when it comes to the relationship of law enforcement and the opioid epidemic. She said, as “a daughter of the Bronx,” she is intimately familiar with the opioid epidemic – “this epidemic is not new to the Bronx” – and said addiction impacted her own family. For Clark, opioid addiction is not a crime, but a medical condition.

“As the DA, I had to look at that situation when I took office, knowing what I knew, personally, from my years living here,” Clark said. “I can’t prosecute my way out of this. We have to have a more humane system.”