State Supplying SUNY Campus Cops With Heroin-Overdose Antidote
PURCHASE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- The state is arming cops on 12 State University of New York campuses with a heroin-overdose antidote.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Wednesday at SUNY Purchase that $27,000 will be provided to university police departments to buy 258 naloxone kits, WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reported.
Naloxone, also known as Narcan, "reverses the effects of an overdose immediately," Schneiderman said.
The program will be funded by money seized from drug dealers and other criminals, the attorney general said.
The prevalence of heroin on SUNY campuses is a relatively recent phenomenon, said Bruce McBride, commissioner of SUNY police.
"If you asked me two years would we be dealing with this, I say, 'Nah, I don't know,'" McBride said.
"Nobody used herion, at least on campus communities," McBride added. "Then all of a sudden, boom -- we had an explosion."
Two SUNY Oswego students have died from heroin overdoses since April, and two others suffered near-fatal overdoses, Schneiderman's office said. Last year, a graduate student died from an overdose on the Binghamton University campus, officials said.
Schneiderman said heroin has lost its stigma among college students.
"Kids who might have had a beer or smoked a joint before but would never think of going near a heroin dealer, now it's just in there with other party drugs," the attorney general said.
You May Also Be Interested In These Stories