Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon called out Gov. Kathy Hochul on fentanyl last week, and he’s entirely right: She’s again trying to dodge the toughest issues.
In the local part of the national crisis, New Yorkers by the hundreds are dying from ODs; shameless addicts plague the streets.
Yet New York’s so-called experts, including public-health officials, keep insisting on nothing but “harm reduction” strategies that are worse than useless, as they encourage addiction.
So naturally Hochul has created an OD-prevention task force packed exclusively with 17 “experts” from across state agencies.
It’s a task farce.
Hence McMahon’s move last week, slamming the gov for failing to include officials and family members directly, personally affected by the crisis. Nor even a rep from law enforcement.
Her farce comes a year after she vetoed a bill to create a state task force on fighting fentanyl, at which time she promised to create one on her own.
Hochul’s task force does not include anyone with personal drug abuse experience.G.N. Miller/New York Post
“After months and months of lip service, the governor has taken the revolutionary step of instructing her own staff to simply do their jobs: Discuss the issue amongst themselves and audit their own performance on dealing with the overdose crisis before providing recommendations to her,” says McMahon.
“They will meet just a handful of times, yet conveniently still apart and removed from the pain and suffering of Staten Islanders except for a ‘public listening session’ that will be treated as nothing more than checking a box.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s fentanyl task force is under fire.AP
We’re not sure any task force would be a major step forward, but this one is guaranteed to fail. It lacks anyone who’s felt the devastating ramifications of drug abuse: mothers, brothers and frontline professionals touched by the scourge of opioid abuse with first-hand experience of what doesn’t work.
All this, as the public-health bureaucracy is going for same-old, same-old even in the face of tranq.
Again: The progressive “harm reduction” approach centers on “how to do drugs safely,” when the only focus with a hope of working is “don’t touch drugs that will ruin your life even if they don’t kill you” (along with cutting off the supply).
“They will meet just a handful of times, yet conveniently still apart and removed from the pain and suffering of Staten Islanders,” McMahon said.G.N. Miller/New York Post
Indeed, progressives’ logic leads to legalization, “solving” the problem by pretending it isn’t one except a need for more “support” for addicts.
No: Some carrots may be helpful, but you’ll get nowhere without a lot of sticks, too.
New York and the nation need to fight fentanyl (and tranq), not surrender and “learn to live with it.”
Source link: https://nypost.com/2023/09/02/hochuls-drug-task-force-continues-the-an-ineffective-trend/