Government

State passes bills aimed at tackling growing heroin problem

(Credit: Paul Squire)
(Credit: Paul Squire)

AID IN EMERGENCY RESPONSE

• The governor has teamed up with state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to make supplies of naloxone — an overdose antidote also known by the brand name Narcan — available to all first responder units in the state, including the Southold Town Police Department, which started using it this month.

WORTH NOTING: Just Monday, a trained Southold Town police officer first to arrive at the scene of an overdose in Mattituck administered the life-saving drug to a patient using a nasal spray, said Vincent Tirelli Jr., first assistant chief of Mattituck Fire Department.

“The officer administering it probably saved a couple of minutes,” Mr. Tirelli said. “One minute can be the difference between a patient surviving and a patient dying. We started to see an improvement by the time ambulance arrived on scene.”

Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps Chief Joseph Oliver said before this year, volunteers typically treated one heroin overdose patient every other month, a rate that had remained consistent in past years.

Volunteers are now treating two to three overdose patients a month, he said — a rate that has been increasing since February.

Riverhead police will soon be equipped with the antidote drugs as well, according to the attorney general’s office.