Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon says the state has taken a new step to fight “an incredible and at times overwhelming opioid drug crisis," that has taken over the borough.
As of April 14th, New York and New Jersey now share prescription data. It's an effort to prevent the resale of drugs to those who abuse prescription drugs like codeine and oxycodone.
“You have three bridges that lead to New Jersey, and they could fill prescriptions on the other side of those bridges in New Jersey,” said Assemblyman Michael Cusick of Staten Island.
"We know that addicts of prescription pills here on Staten Island, often go to New Jersey and other nearby states, to circumvent the monitoring system that we have in place here in New York State with I-STOP,” said McMahon.
Assemblyman Cusick and State Senator Andrew Lanza authored the I-STOP bill. The 2012 law launched a statewide prescription monitoring system. But it wasn’t enough.
"What was happening was so many people were going to New Jersey, so by working with the state of New Jersey they are now sharing information,” said McMahon. “They're taking steps to stop that illegal flow and very harmful flow of prescription medications here to Staten Island."
“Senator Lanza and I had always pushed that after I-STOP passed,” said Cusick. “We would always have to join up with other states.”
The DA says there’s a specific need for a partnership like this in the borough.
"We are losing Staten Islanders at a rate of almost one every two days, to opioid, analgesic or heroin overdoses,” according to McMahon. “So this is a very important step to cutting off the supply."
Cusick says the next states New York is looking to partner with are Connecticut and Pennsylvania.