BUFFALO, N.Y. — After responding to three suspected drug overdoses in one car, Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield said there are concerns about the rising need and cost of Narcan.
“We’re supported completely by the taxpayers of the city of Buffalo,” he told WKBW. “The cost is definitely being borne by the taxpayers of this community, but there’s another cost that is also being borne in terms of persons who are addicted to drugs in the community.”
Whitfield said firefighters are administering several doses of Narcan each day, which is costing tens of thousands of dollars. Crews are responding to many overdose calls around the first of the month, likely because that’s when fixed income checks go out.
“It’s any person who is on a fixed income,” Whitfield said. “Those payments are often issued around the first of the month. Whether it’s your retirement, social security, it could be social services. So for a number of reasons, I think that there is more money flowing in our community at that time of the month. It’s in good families, in all kinds of families from all kinds of backgrounds.”