Law enforcement officials in Nassau and Suffolk counties are joining forces in the fight against heroin on Long Island, forming the Long Island Heroin Task Force. The task force will be taking aim at dealers, not users, of the drug.
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said there needs to be an “all-Island” approach to fighting the heroin epidemic.
“It doesn’t know any borders," he said. "You know, we talk about this with school districts. You know it’s not in one school district. It’s in every school district. It’s in every community. It’s in every county. This is an epidemic across our nation.”
Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said the taskforce will investigate every overdose on the Island, and go after the dealers to "put a kink in the drug chain." Each county will provide four experienced narcotics detectives and one supervisor for the task force.
There were 103 fatal overdoses in Suffolk County last year, and 58 in Nassau, but the numbers could have been higher. According to statistics released by the two county police departments, they administered the heroin antidote Narcan 959 times last year.
