Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation to Combat the Heroin and Opioid Crisis on Staten Island

Thank you. Good afternoon. Pleasure to be back on Staten Island and first, how about that Ann Marie? Let's give her another round of applause.

You know, I have three daughters. I cannot imagine the pain of losing a child. It really is just unimaginable. It is unnatural. We have losses in life. We lose parents, brothers, sister, but there is a sequence, there is a cycle to life. It is unnatural to lose a child. And that you took that pain and you put it into a positive place speaks so highly of you and who you are and your character and your integrity and your strength that you have the admiration of every person in this room. And you know, I believe God does everything for a reason. And your loss, I believe, will save other parents and literally save them from going through the pain and literally will save lives. And you have all of our gratitude for that, Ann Marie Perrotto.

It is a pleasure to be with my colleague, Senator Lanza, who really is one of the finest people in the New York State Legislature. You are lucky to have him. I hate to say that in front of him because he then uses it against me later on. But it is true. He is in the business for all the right reasons. He has total integrity. He works hard and it is always about making a difference in his community. And it is that simple, the formula to do public service right. And he does public service right. Senator Lanza, pleasure to be with him. Assemblyman Michael Cusick has been a friend for a long time. He is the real deal. He is a young star. He is on the rise. Let's give him a round of applause. And all my other colleagues from the Assembly and the Senate who are here today, they are all looking much better than the last time I saw them because the last time I saw them, they were in Albany and they were at the end of the legislative session. And the way it works in Albany is the legislative session goes from January to June. And you are going up and down, back and forth to Albany, and you are missing home, and you are missing meals, and you are missing love, so towards the end of the session everyone gets a little gray-looking and a little ornery, let's say. But now they have been home for a week and they are looking much happier and they are looking much healthier.

We also had a very good legislative session overall. We accomplished a lot of good things, a lot of good things for the people, a lot of national precedents that New York accomplished, which are now literally going nationwide. We have the best paid family leave program in the United States of America and we passed that right here. More funding for education than the state has ever committed before, almost $25 billion. We are the first state in the United States to require that every school tests its water for lead. First state, State of New York. We just passed legislation against what they call "zombie properties." Zombie properties are the properties that are abandoned and wind up deteriorating and take down the whole neighborhood and that's finally done and we did that here in the State of New York and something that I always make a little money on the side with. New York State just cut taxes for the middle class, middle class defined up to $300,000, lowest tax rate in 70 years in the state of New York. The way I make on that is I bet everybody I see, "Do you think New York State raised taxes or lowered taxes?" And everybody says "raise taxes," right? Because you can't conceive of government actually lowering taxes, but we did and the lowest rate in 70 years is actually something to talk about.

So, we had a great session overall, but I think the most impactful thing we did is this policy on heroin. I believe this will literally save lives and it is the product of a lot people who worked very hard. We had a Joint Task Force between the Senate and the Assembly. They went all across the state having hearings. I was here with Senator Lanza and Assemblyman Cusick at the hearing on Staten Island. Ann Marie, your story, the story of parents who lost children, the story of providers, was so compelling, the Task Force did an extraordinary report and it was freighting to read the report because the numbers are increasing exponentially. Senator Lanza mentioned 3,000 hospital visits on Staten Island. 10 years ago, this was not a problem. 10 years ago, you had 7, 8 deaths on Staten Island. Last year, we had 80 and the numbers are just doubling and tripling all across the state. It's not just this state, it is happening all across the country. You want to get a scope of the severity of this problem, we now lose more people to heroin or opioid overdoses as we did to AIDS at its peak, believe it or not. AIDS at its peak. And it has grown so gradually, that people haven't really taken notice. It does not discriminate. It's black children, it's white children, it's brown children, it's rich children, it's poor children, it's urban, it's suburban. It is a drug that is more accessible than any other drug. Most of the addictions start with a prescription pain killer and you start with a pain killer and you are on it for a protracted period of time and then you cannot get off or somebody gives you some of their prescription medication and the numbers are just going up, up and up.

So, New York State had the Task Force. We came up with the comprehensive plan. We're about to sign the legislation. First thing the legislation does is it takes on the insurance companies. Why? The insurance companies have been a hurdle and an obstacle in the beginning of this process. Now, the insurance companies, I was the Attorney General before I was the Governor, and I sued the insurance companies all the time. Not because I'm an especially litigious fellow, but the insurance companies are in the business of health care. They are businesses. They are not charities. They are not you're friend. They're not your uncle. They're not your doctor. They are in the business of providing insurance, which means if they don't have to provide it, they don't want to provide it because it's expensive and what's happening now is many times the decisions are made by the insurance company.

And when you have a person who is on heroin or on a drug and they are ready to go into treatment, they have to go right then. And you have so many cases of a parent who has a child who needs treatment and the insurance company says, "Well we are not ready to approve or we want a second opinion or we want him or her to look at our doctor," and the insurance companies and the delay from the insurance company literally has cost lives in my opinion, this state is going to do something that we have never done before. The decision to give treatment for heroin or opioids is not going to be left to the insurance companies, it is going to be made by a doctor and the insurance company is going to do what the doctor says rather than vice versa. It is a very simple system, the state is going to set up a medical protocol, the doctor will answer the questions. If the doctor answers those questions and it says that that person needs treatment than that person is going to get the treatment and that insurance company is going to have to pay for the treatment period.

That is the first thing we did in this legislation. Second, if you have a child once that child hits eighteen years old, you don't have the right to involuntarily institutionalize the child and the current law is that they can only be held for 48 hours against their will and you have a lot of parents and a lot of medical professionals who will say that 48 hours is too short. Because within 48 hours the person, even if they are now clean for 48 hours, they have not yet stabilized and if you let the person out after 48 hours there is a very high chance that they are going to go right back to where they were and redo exactly what they were doing. On the other hand, it was controversial because you also have the civil liberties question. If a person is over eighteen years old and you are holding them against their will medical professionals said that the right amount of time for release should be increased from 48 hours to 72 hours and that is what this law does. You can hold a person for 72 hours. It is for their own good and I am comfortable that it is not an invasion on their civil rights if a doctor says that their health requires them to be held for 72 hours, then hold them for 72 hours and that is what this law is going to do.

Third, our medical professionals and our pharmacists are truly a part of this issue. They have been writing prescriptions for more painkillers than people need. My 20 year old a couple of months ago had her tonsils out and came home with a 30 day supply of opioids, for having her tonsils out. If you take opioids for 30 days there is a good chance that you are starting to have a problem when you quit. When you give someone a 30 day supply that is a very valuable supply that they can actually sell. This law says no more 30 day prescriptions, no prescription will be written for longer than 7 days. If you have to refill it, refill it but nothing longer than 7 days.

And the fourth piece is treatment. You cannot force a person into treatment, it doesn't work, unless a person is ready to accept the treatment unless a person believe that they need the treatment you cannot make them go into treatment. But when a person is ready to go, when a person hits bottom, when a person knows that they need help, then you have to strike when the iron is hot, and you have to get that person into treatment right then and there. You have a window of opportunity when the person says, I get it, I need help. And you want to seize that window because it could be gone the next day.
Too many times people call for treatment and the treatment center says we have no beds now. Call back in 30 days, call back in 30 days? The person could be dead in 30 days. Or the person could just be in a different mindset.

We need more treatment slots in the state of New York. This is going to increase treatment. 2500 more slots will be funded by this bill so we will have the treatment we need. And we will have both day treatment as well as residential treatment, so depending on the condition of the person they can get the treatment. That is a comprehensive program that gives us the tools we need.

But let me end where Senator Lanza started. It comes down to the word leadership, and he was very kind to me. But the truth is, I've been in government a long time. Government, you can tell what the government is all about in the way it responds to a crisis. Because that's when you really need government to function. I don't care if it is Hurricane Sandy, or if it is 9/11, or if it is terrorism, that is when you really need government to function. And there's no excuses. It either comes together and it works, or it does not. And in this case, your state government came together and worked. The Senate came together with the Assembly, Democrats came together with Republicans, they put politics aside. It was how do we get this done, and how do we get this done for the people of our state. I will tell you something about this plan. The White House called and said, this is the best plan in the country and they want to use it as a model for other states. That is the product that was done here. And the leadership was shown by Senator Lanza and Assemblyman Cusick, and Senator Savino and the Assemblymen who were here, and Dick Gottfried and David Weprin and Steve Cymbrowitz, and on and on, they really stepped up to the plate. They did a smart product and they got it done and they got it done very quickly. So let's give them a round of applause.

And staying on the theme of leadership, this is a crisis. And this is one of the toughest crises that we will go through, or that we have gone through. If we are going to tackle it, it's going to require leadership on everyone's behalf. Government did its part. You have the tools. But we now need law enforcement and the DAs and the police to work together and the educators to work together and teachers to work together, parents to do their job, citizens to do their job, neighbors to do their job. And if everyone steps up and shows leadership, we can actually save lives and end this epidemic. And today is a great step forward, the rest is up to us together. And Assemblyman Cusick is right--if there's a group of people who come together at a time of difficulty and put differences aside and lock arms and get done whatever they need to get done it is Staten Islanders. Let's go do it. Thank you and God bless you.

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