ALBANY – State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced a new budget amendment to help address the state’s fentanyl crisis.
The 30-day budget amendment will allow for 11 fentanyl analogs to be added to New York’s controlled substances schedule. Previously, a loophole in the current state law has kept those fentanyl analogs off the schedule until now.
The amendment will also allow the state’s health commissioner to add any new drugs added to the federal schedule, to the state’s schedule.
According to Cuomo, the number of fentanyl-related deaths in New York have increased almost 160 percent in 2016.