6 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 September 6–12, 2019
Drug ODs down in Brooklyn
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Overdose deaths in Brooklyn
dropped by almost a quarter
last year, but the borough
continues to suffer from more
drug-related fatalities than any
other aside from the Bronx,
according to new government
figures.
A report by the city’s Department
of Health and Mental
Hygiene shows a drop in Kings
County overdose deaths from
355 in 2017 to 273 in 2018, or 82
less fatalities year over year.
The Bronx maintained its
tragic distinction as the deadliest
borough for overdoses, with
391 fatalities, while Manhattan
(267), Queens (215), and Staten
Island (114) followed Brooklyn
as the third, fourth, and least
deadly respectively.
Aside from Brooklyn, only
Queens saw a reduction in overdose
deaths, with 55 less people
dying last year compared
to 2017.
Both cocaine and the highlypotent
synthetic opioid fentanyl
— which is 30 to 50 times
stronger than heroin — were involved
in the majority of overdose
deaths, according to the
Health Department.
The improvement in Kings
County follows the launch
of progressive new policies
Department of Health
Brooklyn’s overdose deaths decreased by almost a
quarter in 2018, down 82 deaths from the year before.
Only Queens also registered a decrease, while
the other boroughs had higher numbers than 2017.
both in Brooklyn and citywide,
including the debut of
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $60 million
HealthNYC initiative in
March 2017, which saw officials
distribute the lifesaving
overdose drug Naloxone, provide
increased funding to 14
needle exchange programs, and
offer educational programming
to prevent overdoses.
Brooklyn District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez piloted his
Brooklyn Clear program —
which offers suspects cuffed
on narcotics possession charges
the chance to avoid prosecution
if they complete a drug counseling
program — in southern
Brooklyn neighborhoods
in February 2018, before expanding
it boroughwide in
September.
Since then, Gonzalez’s office
has accepted 410 participants,
of whom 380 completed
the program, according to
spokesman Oren Yaniv.
Gonzalez offers the program
to suspects arrested with
any narcotic substance, not just
opiates, according to Yaniv,
who noted their office recovered
crack cocaine in more than
half of cases, compared to just
25 percent with opioids.
But advocates claim more
can be done to protect Brooklyn
drug users, saying Governor
Cuomo must authorize de Blasio’s
plan to open the nation’s
first supervised drug injection
facility in Boerum Hill if he
wants to see overdose numbers
continue to fall.
“There are some improvements
in numbers, but the state
is now a big barrier and Governor
Cuomo is now a big barrier
to saving more lives,” said
Reed Vreeland of the harm reduction
advocacy group Housing
Works.
Vreeland went on to compare
Brooklyn’s 273 deaths to
Portugal, a country with twice
the population of Kings County,
but which decriminalized all
drugs in 2001, and had only
54 overdose deaths in 2015,
according to the Drug Policy
Alliance .
School site for sale ilton Parkway is being demolished
Former Catholic School site demolished
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
Local Catholic Church
leaders are in the process of
demolishing a run-down former
school building on Fort
Hamilton Parkway — and
city education honchos may
be eyeing the property.
The Brooklyn Diocese is
looking to sell off the site of
the former three-story former
Catholic school building on
Fort Hamilton Parkway between
40th and 41st Street after
it is completely demolished
in early September, a spokesman
confirmed.
“The building on Fort Ham-
given its poor condition,”
said John Quaglione.
When asked if they were
in the process of purchasing
the property, and what their
future plans were, a spokesman
with the School Construction
Authority — the design
and building arm of the public
school system — suggested
that they were, albeit, in the
vaguest possible terms.
“We are very early in the
process,” said Kevin Ortiz.
Ortiz said he “can’t elaborate
further at this point,”
but added a blanket statement
about their procurement process
as it relates to former diocese
buildings.
“The School Construction
Authority is always interested
in looking at diocese buildings
as viable locations for new
public school space.”
Photo by Trey Pentecost
The three-story building on Fort Hamilton Parkway
between 40th and 41 streets is being demolished
and listed for sale by the Brooklyn Diocese.
Saint Saviour High School
Park Slope, Brooklyn
102 years of forward-thinking education
for young women
Did you know?
$10 million in merit scholarships was earned by the
Class of 2019.
We are the first all-girls high school in the Brooklyn
Diocese to have a greenhouse classroom with NY
SunWorks.
Our students have been accepted to some amazing
Colleges and Universities: Macaulay Honors, Yale,
USC, Villanova, US Naval Academy, BC, BU,
Columbia, GWU, Catholic, NYU, RPI, Swarthmore
and Wesleyan.
We have a new partnership with the Amazon Future
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Visit us at our Fall Open Houses: Sunday, Sept. 29 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesday, Oct. 30 6 pm - 7:30 pm
RSVP: www.stsaviour.org/admissions
Join us for a Buddy Day! Call 718-768-4406
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