Senator Rich Funke and Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O’Flynn are calling on state lawmkers to expand enforcement and crack down on dealers in an effort to battle the opioid epidemic in New York.
Over a dozen bills were proposed regarding opioid use during the 2017 legislative session. Funke says that the proposals passed the state senate, but none made it through the state assembly.
Funke says the bills will have to be re-introduced during the next legislative session in January.
"And if I have to stand up here and do a news conference each and every day, every week, every month until January to press this issue, that's what I'm going to do."
The 14 proposals include creating drug free zones around drug and alcohol treatment centers, limiting prescriptions of controlled substances to children and improving the regulation of Fentanyl.
One bill Senator Funke pointed out was "Laree's Law." Currently, a person who provides an illicit drug that results in the death of a user can typically only be charged with criminal sale of a controlled substance. Laree's Law would establish the crime of homicide by sale of an opiate.
“There have been too many lives cut short, too many parents burying children, too many families and communities devastated by this. In almost all of these cases the addicts had one thing in common, a dealer who sold them the drugs that killed them."
Sheriff O’Flynn says he wishes state assembly members could witness what police see on a daily basis.
"We've teamed up with all the local law enforcement, everybody's giving their best effort. But it is a huge problem, when you see the volume of drugs that are coming into the community from all different sources, it’s tough to plug that."
Both Sheriff O’Flynn and Senator Funke say it’s time for lawmakers to take the next step to give law enforcement the tools they need to combat this epidemic.
Back in June, just before this year’s legislative session ended, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said that the Assembly Democrats remained focused on treatment and prevention, and he told Gannett that “enhanced penalties are not a solution to addiction.”
Republicans urged the Assembly to adopt the GOP’s measures, saying that the laws are needed to hold drug dealers more accountable.