Kirsten Gillibrand

•  Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York senator, announced a bipartisan piece of legislation aimed at combating the opioid crisis by limiting over-prescription.

• The bill (John S. McCain Opioid Addiction and Prevention Act) would reduce the prescription time of opioids for acute pain to seven days.
• It was also aimed at reducing excess opioids in the system as it required medical professionals to sign that they would not prescribe an opioid as the first treatment for acute pain.
• Senator Gilibrand stated that one of the major causes of opioid abuse is over prescription of the addictive drugs.

Richard C. David

• In a state of the city address, Mayor Richard David of Binghamton, New York stated that heroin is a great force that is tearing neighborhoods apart and inciting criminal activity.
• He insisted that law enforcement alone cannot fix the crisis and that a multi-targeted approach was needed.

• The city introduced an Intensive Care Navigator position aimed at supporting clients leaving short-term addiction crisis centers as they wait for placement in long-term care facilities.

Peter Harckham

• State senator Peter Harckham who acknowledged his struggles with addiction introduced 17 bills that were passed to fight drug abuse and the rise in overdose deaths.
• The bills would change the way opioids are prescribed, the training of providers, and the distribution of naloxone which is a drug that reduces overdoses.

Summary of Early Findings

• Our first hour of research was spent scanning for information surrounding elected state and federal elected officials in New York who have been outspoken about the opioid crisis to determine whether the information has been available, which it is. We included three officials in the early findings who are both state and federal officials.
• Please select one or more of the options provided in the scoping section below.