buffalonews.com
Robert Gavin
June 3, 2025
ALBANY – Warning that New York is “behind the times,” a Buffalo emergency physiciantold a legislative panel Tuesday the state needs to pass a law to allow paramedics andother first responders to carry opioid withdrawal drugs when responding to overdoses.
“This shouldn’t be that complicated,” Joshua Lynch, a nationally recognized expert onaddiction, testified before the Assembly Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse during ahearing on the prevalence of additives to synthetic opioids in the state.
Lynch, a senior physician with UBMD Emergency Medicine, said paramedics in New Yorkcannot carry or administer Suboxone, even though it was sanctioned in 2023 by the StateEmergency Medical Advisory Committee and the State Emergency Medical Services Council,the entities that establish the state’s emergency medical service protocol. Training programshave also been developed, he said.
“The only thing that is missing is the legislative action to actually allow paramedics to do it,”Lynch said.
He noted that he has repeatedly called for the state to allow paramedics to use Suboxone or thesimilar drug, buprenorphine, in responding to emergency calls. The drugs do not reverseoverdoses in the way that naloxone – sold as Narcan, does – but they can decrease cravings foropioids, block their effect and suppress withdrawal symptoms, according to a bill introduced byAssembly Member Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, that would allow New York to establish aprogram to allow paramedics to carry the drugs.
The proposal has no sponsor in the Senate.
“New York is behind times with this. This is proven to save lives,” Lynch testified. “We needlegislation passed as soon as possible so paramedics can provide this service on the scene of a911 call.”
Lynch said other states have passed laws to allow paramedicsto carry Suboxone and buprenorphine, but some, such as NewJersey, made the law too restrictive by requiring paramedicsto use the drugs only after naloxone was used beforehand.
Lynch cautioned that despite drops in overdoses across thecountry, the landscape has changed. The opioid epidemicbegan with heroin, then shifted to fentanyl, a far more potentand shorter-acting drug. Now, to increase the duration ofdrug’s impact and other areas of euphoria, illegal drug cartelsare adding contaminants to fentanyl such as xylazine, a non-narcotic veterinary tranquilizerand medetomidine, a non-opioid sedative.
“That has changed our response so now we’re dealing, almost always, with polysubstanceoverdoses,” Lynch said.
Assembly Member Phil Steck, D-Colonie, who chairs the committee and led the hearing, askedLynch what he would suggest to the committee to deal with the problem of contaminants.
“Is there some application similar to naloxone that would help in this area?” Steck asked.
“The short answer is there’s not direct overdose reversal agents for many of the contaminants,so obviously restricting the supply should go without saying,” Lynch said. “However, educationfor those that are dealing with people that are at risk for an overdose is key.”
Lynch said first responders need to know that naloxone may not solve all the problems anoverdose victim is suffering. And many times, overdose patients do not want to go to thehospital after they have received naloxone, putting them at higher risk after the EMS crewleaves, he said.
Kimberly Boulden, director of operations for the MATTERS (Medication for Addiction,Treatment and Electronic Referrals), which began in Buffalo and was created byLynch, testified that evidence shows that as fentanyl saturation in opioids increase, so too willthe demand. That could increase tolerance levels and desire for harder drugs.
Also testifying was Martin Ping, a Columbia County grandfather of 16-year-old Avery Ping, whodied in December after accidentally overdosing on drugs that he purchased on Snapchat.
“I come before you today as a grandfather whose family has been shattered by the deadlyintersection of social media platforms and drug dealers,” Ping told the panel. “Across thecountry, including here in New York, drug dealers are weaponizing social media platforms toreach our vulnerable population – our children. They use sophisticated algorithms andencrypted messaging to evade detection while peddling death to teenagers who often don’trealize they’re purchasing lethal substances.”
Ping said the drug dealer was continuing to operate as narcotics investigators worked tosubpoena Snapchat records of the dealer.
“We need to hold social media companies accountable through legislation,” he said. “Every daywe delay, more families join this devastating club that no one wants to be part of.”
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