Viewpoint: Give law enforcement more funds to fight drugs

Opioid deaths in New York have become so commonplace that it’s virtually impossible to remember one tragedy for longer than 24 hours. Recently, President Donald Trump tweeted about China’s involvement in our country’s fentanyl crisis, bringing it back to a top of the mind position — where it belongs.

In 2017 alone, 72,300 Americans died from drug overdoses. Drug overdoses took the lives of 3,638 New Yorkers in 2016, the most recent year for which complete data are available. And fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more powerful than morphine, has replaced heroin and oxycodone as the most potent killer.

According to nydatabases.com, opioid deaths increased almost 135 percent statewide between 2013 and 2016 — and doubled or tripled in many cities stretching from Buffalo to New York City, where the city health department found that fentanyl was involved in 57 percent of the opioid deaths.

Action must be taken to severely decrease the number of Americans affected by fentanyl and other illicit opioids, but it will not be possible without proper funding for law enforcement. Mexican drug cartels are receiving shipments of fentanyl from manufacturers in China and reproducing it into synthetic pills to be smuggled into our country.

Just a few months ago, authorities seized more than 30,000 fentanyl pills in two incidents at the San Ysidro checkpoint. These pills contain so little fentanyl — since only trace amounts can kill — that they are hard to detect.

Law enforcement officers across the U.S. need to be equipped with the correct tools to detect and handle fentanyl-laced drugs. As a longtime police officer and head of the Police Conference of New York, I know firsthand how much support from the federal government can aid initiatives that ensure the safety of people in our communities.

Our country’s opioid crisis is complex; it will take time and creativity to stop this illicit drug from killing people in our communities. New York’s 2013 I-STOP law requiring the use of a prescription monitoring program transformed the way New York state fought the scourge of opiate addiction, but more must be done.

Our lawmakers must allocate additional funding and support to those at the front lines of this crisis. The flow of fentanyl must be stopped before it crosses our borders and continues to kill tens of thousands of Americans.

Richard Wells is president of the Police Conference of New York.