Memo to would-be New York City tourists: Bring the Narcan.
The New York Post headlines this shocking news: https://nypost.com/2023/09/27/
The official surrender to our drug crisis: NYers told to carry Narcan
The Post reports this in an editorial:
“Gotham officials have given up on even pretending to fight New York’s massive and growing drug crisis.
Witness Monday’s pronouncement from Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan: ‘Everyone should carry naloxone, get trained to use it, and to recognize the signs of overdose,’ he said.”
Naloxone, for the unaware, is a defining ingredient in narcan. The latter is defined as follows over there in Forbes magazine: https://www.forbes.com/health/
Narcan (Naloxone): What It Is And How To Use It Safely
Says Forbes:
“Narcan (naloxone) is a life-saving drug used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose. When administered quickly following an overdose, it can restore normal breathing and save lives.”
It can be taken either through injection or as a naval spray.
The Post went on:
“This is his response to a crisis that killed more than 3,000 New Yorkers last year — a major jump over the prior year’s figure, and the biggest single-year toll since record-keeping began in 2000.
That’s one OD death every three hours, by Vasan’s own calculation.
Yet he and our other public-health experts have decided simply to . . . give up and foist the onus onto untrained, unpaid random passersby.
This surrender is clearly the logical culmination of Vasan’s approach.
…The Post previously reported on how fentanyl — a lab-made drug that is being pumped into the United States from Mexican cartels — has invaded nearly all aspects of the illicit drug scene in the Big Apple.
That reality was furthered Monday by the city’s Health Department’s data that showed another record number of opioid deaths last year.
In 2022, more than 3,000 people were the victim of fatal overdoses, a 12% uptick from 2021 when under 2,700 people died from drugs, the vast majority due to the synthetic opioid.”
All of which is to say the officials of New York City have essentially admitted defeat in keeping fentanyl and opioids off city streets. Which in turn means the Biden Administration’s border policy – and fentanyl floods through that open southern border – is an abysmal failure.
Two months from now the Christmas season will open in New York City. And as anyone who has been in New York at Christmas knows, the city is a tourist Mecca at Christmas. Beginning with the traditional Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade – which always ends with a smiling Santa on a float – tens of thousands of tourists will be jostling through the city to take in the sights and the shopping.
Now they are being told by city officials the city is in such bad shape, flooded with fentanyl and opioids, that they should be carrying Narcan as a safety measure.
Merry Christmas from Joe Biden.
