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Yorktown's Murphy Unveils Seven Point Plan To Fight Heroin

YORKTOWN, N.Y. -- Yorktown's Dr. Terrence Murphy recently unveiled his plan for addressing the Hudson Valley's growing heroin crisis.

Terrence Murphy

Terrence Murphy

Photo Credit: File

Murphy's plan includes:

  • Sponsoring legislation to require insurance companies to cover drug treatment and rehab up to 90 days.
  • Using drug seizure proceeds to provide funding for Naloxone, a potentially life-saving overdose treatment, to all first responders.
  • Restoring the Gap Elimination Adjustment school aid cuts made by Senate Democrats in 2010 to increase state funding for school resource officers (Police SROs) and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) in all area schools to help with prevention.
  • Forming a joint federal-interstate-local, inter-agency law enforcement counter-narcotics proliferation task force and removing legal barriers to data sharing.
  • Creating a state grant program for local narcotics units to provide stepped up enforcement against drug distributors.
  • Increasing penalties for major narcotics traffickers.
  • Restoring funding cuts enacted by Senate Democrats to the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to fund peer recovery advocates, addiction services and treatment programs.

"We need a multi-faceted approach that provides law enforcement officials, our mental hygiene and substance abuse professionals and our first responders with the tools they need to save lives," Murphy said in a statement. "Counter-drug efforts are not just about enforcement. They are about treating addiction and we need to step our efforts on prevention as well on recovery so our kids won't get hooked. Instead of worrying about picking our state snack, Albany needs to be focused on winning the war on heroin. I'm prepared to bring that focus."

 

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