Nassau County, NY authorities unveil heroin enforcement initiative

February 12th, 2010 - 4:10 am ICT by BNO News  

MINEOLA, NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) – Significant heroin enforcement initiatives were unveiled by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey in a press conference in Mineola, New York on Thursday.

During the conference Mangano and Mulvey presented two of the three pronged approaches to combating heroin use in Nassau County, Operation H.A.L.T. (Heroin Abuse Location & Targeting) and Parental Awareness Ad Campaign. The third one will be shown in the near future and it is said it will involve education.

Heroin is known as a highly addictive drug and could lead to an overdose and possible death. It has gain popularity among citizens for the last two decades. In Nassau County there were 386 heroin arrests in 2009, 45% more than in 2008.

“Here in Nassau County we lose at least four residents a month to heroin overdoses,” said Mr. Mangano. “Today the Police Commissioner and I are making the heroin and opiate abuse problem the department’s number one priority.”

Operation H.A.L.T. has the objective of targeting heroin users that travel in and out of the county to purchase the drug. The operation will focus also on the “Casual Distribution Networks”, which consists in a heroin user that purchases heroin for personal use and distributes it to friends.

The Nassau County Police Department will provide 30 members to work on the initiative. H.A.L.T. will be working along the FBI, DEA, and local police forces and will be able to identify heroin distributors and importers as well,

An ad campaign has also been launched in order to involve the Nassau community into the prevention program. Parents of teenagers are the main target of the Parental Awareness Ad Campaign.

“In almost all cases parents do not suspect their kid is a heroin user because they are doing well in school or they are involved in athletics. By the time parents become aware that there is a problem it is too late, their kids are hooked. Heroin is cheap, dangerous and more addictive than ever,” Commisioner Mulvey declared.

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