I. THE WORSE THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC BECAME, THE MORE MONEY THE GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATED TO FIGHT IT
What happens when the government receives more money to combat a problem as that problem grows worse?
And what happens when the same government finances narcotics enforcement, recruits drug offenders as confidential informants, diverts certain heroin dealers from prison, provides public assistance to offenders, and then requests additional funding because heroin distribution and overdose deaths remain a crisis?
Does the government have a financial incentive to eliminate the problem — or to administer an increasingly expensive problem indefinitely?
Three New York State Senate investigations, conducted between 2014 and 2018, raise that question.
The documentary evidence is unusually revealing because it comes from the government itself.
The New York State Senate's 2014 report, Solutions to New York's Heroin Epidemic, documented an escalating heroin crisis throughout upstate New York, including Delaware, Otsego, and Chenango Counties.
At the February 23, 2016, Senate hearing at SUNY Oneonta, prosecutors, sheriffs, treatment providers, and public officials described the operation of Drug Courts, the use of cooperating offenders, the dangers of heroin distribution, fatal overdoses, and the shortage of housing for addicted offenders.
Then, on October 23, 2018, the Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction issued another report, describing its accomplishments, recommendations, and increasing public expenditures.
Read together, these documents reveal an extraordinary financial trajectory.
New York's opioid-response funding increased from $168 million in fiscal year 2015–2016 to $247 million in fiscal year 2018–2019.
That was an increase of $79 million — or 47%.
Meanwhile, the Senate's 2018 report documented that opioid-related deaths in New York had more than doubled, from 1,030 in 2009 to 2,158 in 2015, that was BEFORE the dramatic funding increase started.
Measure | Earlier figure | Later figure | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
Opioid-related deaths | 1,030 (2009) | 2,158 (2015) | +109.5% |
Heroin-related deaths | 638 (2013) | 1,041 (2015) | +63.2% |
State opioid-response funding | $168M (FY 2015–16) | $247M (FY 2018–19) | +47.0% |
Huh?
New York opioid-related deaths increased 109.5% between 2009 and 2015. Heroin-related deaths increased 63.2% between 2013 and 2015. State opioid-response funding subsequently increased 47.0%, from $168 million in FY 2015–2016 to $247 million in FY 2018–2019.
These figures come from the New York State Senate's own 2018 report.
Let's overlay the increase in heroin deaths, specifically.
The question: What measurable results did taxpayers receive for the additional $79 million in annual appropriations? More OD deaths - and those are only the ones reported?
All of those people gloriously reporting their accomplishments, were DEALING in people's DEATHS, deliberately putting drug dealers into the streets, exposing them - and their customers, to increased risk of fatal overdoses IN THE HOPE - substantiated, apparently - of MORE FUNDING of their law enforcement endeavors? To build their careers and businesses, big and small, OFF THOSE DEATHS?
The number of heroin-related deaths increased from 638 in 2013 to 1,041 in 2015 — an increase of 63%.
These are the Senate's own figures.
The periods are not identical, and the reports do not establish that increased funding caused additional deaths.
They establish something equally important for public accountability.
The government was expanding its financial commitment to combating an epidemic that its own mortality statistics showed had grown dramatically worse.
And the Senate presented the expansion of public spending as an accomplishment.
Sources: New York State Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, 2018 Report & Recommendations, pp. 1, 4, 15.
II. FROM $168 MILLION TO $247 MILLION: THE GROWTH OF THE GOVERNMENT'S OPIOID-RESPONSE INDUSTRY
The 2018 Senate report contains a chart titled "Record Funding Growth to Combat Heroin."
The figures are:
| Fiscal year | State funding |
|---|---|
| 2015–2016 | $168 million |
| 2016–2017 | $174 million |
| 2017–2018 | $210 million |
| 2018–2019 | $247 million |
The total increase over three fiscal years was $79 million.
The Senate characterized this as a 47% increase in funding.
But what did taxpayers receive in exchange?
How many heroin dealers stopped distributing drugs?
How many addicted offenders completed treatment and remained free of criminal activity?
How many overdose deaths were prevented?
How many confidential informants died from overdoses while maintaining contact with drug-distribution networks?
How many private homes were damaged or contaminated by offenders whom the government chose to keep in the community?
How much of the money went to actual medical treatment?
How much went to administrative expenses, salaries, court operations, law enforcement, consultants, contractors, and organizations receiving public grants?
The 2018 report described funding increases, legislative initiatives, and new programs.
It did not provide a comprehensive accounting connecting those expenditures to reductions in heroin distribution, repeat offending, or overdose mortality.
Spending more money is not proof of solving a problem.
It is proof of spending more money.
And when the existence and severity of a public crisis justify increasing appropriations, an obvious institutional incentive arises.
Government agencies and publicly financed organizations can seek larger budgets, more employees, expanded facilities, and additional grants as the crisis worsens.
The same agencies may face little direct financial consequence when the underlying problem persists.
This does not establish that officials deliberately caused overdose deaths to obtain funding.
It raises a legitimate question about the incentives created by a system that finances institutional expansion in response to worsening outcomes.
Who measures success, and what happens to an agency's funding when its policies fail?
III. THE SENATE'S OWN REPORT DOCUMENTED THAT THE GOVERNMENT WAS FINANCING MULTIPLE SIDES OF THE SAME CRISIS
The financial structure extended well beyond Drug Courts.
The 2018 Senate report identified new appropriations for several initiatives, including:
$3.75 million for jail-based substance-use-disorder treatment.
$1 million for the Children and Recovering Mothers program.
$350,000 for Infant Recovery Centers.
$500,000 for an emergency-room Opioid Alternative Project.
$1.5 million for an independent Substance Use Disorder and Mental Health Ombudsman.
These appropriations addressed different consequences of the opioid epidemic.
Some funded treatment.
Some funded specialized services for infants and mothers.
Some financed administrative and institutional responses.
Meanwhile, the government continued paying for narcotics investigations, prosecution, incarceration, diversion, public assistance, emergency housing, and child-protection interventions.
At the February 23, 2016, Senate hearing, Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond estimated that nine out of ten people arrested in the drug investigations he described, if not more, were receiving public assistance.
That estimate included drug dealers and addicts committing lesser offenses.
The government was therefore providing financial assistance to a substantial portion of the population simultaneously being investigated for drug-related criminal activity.
The 2014 Senate report also recorded proposals to provide law enforcement with funding for confidential informants.
Franklin County District Attorney Derek Champagne expressly advocated such funding.
The government's expenditure categories thus included support for people with addiction, law enforcement seeking to prosecute drug distribution, and proposals to compensate people who provided information about drug dealers.
The same heroin epidemic generated expenditures across multiple public institutions, each with its own budget, personnel, contractors, and claims of public necessity.
But where was the consolidated financial accounting?
How much was spent per offender?
How much was spent per successful treatment outcome?
How much was spent per criminal prosecution?
What happened to cooperating offenders afterward?
And what was the total financial burden imposed on victims and private property owners?
The public deserves to know whether the expanding system produced measurable improvements proportionate to its cost.
IV. THE CRITICAL QUESTION: ARE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES REWARDED FOR THE CONTINUED EXISTENCE OF THE CRISIS?
The relationship between worsening conditions and expanding public funding creates a structural problem.
A successful intervention should eventually reduce the number of people requiring emergency services, treatment, repeated prosecution, and other publicly financed responses.
But agencies may receive additional resources when they demonstrate that the need for those services is increasing.
That creates a potential conflict between institutional financial interests and long-term public outcomes.
The government can justify additional appropriations by citing more overdoses, more addicted individuals, more children requiring specialized services, and more communities affected by heroin distribution.
The 2018 Senate report did precisely what public-budget advocacy ordinarily does: it identified the severity of the problem, described legislative accomplishments, and advocated continued funding and expansion.
But the missing question is whether the government's own policies contributed to the persistence of the conditions used to justify that expansion.
Consider the testimony of Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride.
At the February 23, 2016, hearing, McBride described diverting certain heroin dealers into Drug Court because they sold heroin to support their own addictions.
He expressly identified avoiding county jail and state prison as benefits of that policy.
What happened to those dealers afterward?
Were they still distributing heroin?
Were they receiving public assistance?
Were they being used as confidential informants?
Were they placed in safe housing?
Did they relapse?
Did they overdose?
Did they expose other residents to criminal activity?
Without those answers, the government cannot establish the complete financial or public-safety consequences of its diversion policies.
The public is being asked to finance a system without receiving a complete accounting of what the system actually produces.
And the people who bear its costs are not limited to taxpayers.
They include addicted offenders, overdose victims, neighboring residents, and private property owners.
V. THE MISSING VICTIMS: HOW MANY PRIVATE HOMES WERE DESTROYED WHILE GOVERNMENT FINANCED THE HEROIN EPIDEMIC?
There is a remarkable omission from New York State's extensive investigations into the heroin epidemic.
The 2014 Senate Task Force report expressly recognized drug-related crime and the destructive consequences of heroin addiction for local communities.
The 2018 report acknowledged the devastation inflicted upon families, neighborhoods, and entire communities.
The government counted overdose deaths, drug arrests, treatment needs, addicted newborns, emergency medical expenditures, and the growing cost of addiction services.
It celebrated increased public appropriations — from $168 million to $247 million annually.
But where is the accounting of privately owned homes destroyed, damaged, contaminated, or rendered uninhabitable by the drug offenders whom the government kept in the community?
How many houses were occupied by convicted heroin dealers who had been diverted from incarceration?
How many were occupied by offenders cooperating with narcotics investigators?
How many were used for drug distribution, controlled purchases, surveillance, or confidential-informant operations?
How many property owners were deprived of possession while police characterized unauthorized occupants as tenants and directed the owners to pursue eviction proceedings?
How many buildings suffered extensive damage before local code-enforcement officials intervened?
And how many owners received compensation?
These losses do not appear as a separately accounted category in the Senate reports.
Yet the criminal record of the Jose Rodriguez heroin-distribution organization demonstrates that private residences were used in the drug trade.
Cooperating prosecution witness Mark Rathburn testified that Rodriguez directed him to rent an apartment and maintain it as a heroin stash house. Rodriguez provided money for rent and paid Rathburn an additional $400 to $500 weekly.
Police subsequently recovered 250 bags of heroin from the apartment.
That arrangement was documented in the criminal proceedings and summarized in Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018).
Private residential property was an operational asset in a heroin-distribution network.
The subsequent controversy concerning James Laughman at 201 Main Street in Delhi raises an even more troubling question: what happens when a convicted heroin dealer occupies property without the owners' consent, and the owners allege that law enforcement permits the occupation because the offender is useful as a confidential informant?
Laughman was a twice-convicted felon who admitted selling heroin to support his own addiction.
He occupied 201 Main Street without the owners' permission.
The owners reported threats, lack of essential utilities, unsanitary conditions, unauthorized occupants, drug activity, and serious safety hazards.
Police and Village officials were aware of complaints concerning the premises.
Yet the Village of Delhi issued its stop-occupancy order only after Laughman's death on October 24, 2024.
By then, the owners alleged, the property had sustained extensive physical damage and contamination involving drugs, needles, human and animal waste, and other hazardous materials.
According to a sworn affirmation, Village Police Chief Michael Mills subsequently warned a neighboring resident about fentanyl, needles, and drug paraphernalia inside the building and offered Narcan in connection with a possible cleanup.
The owners state that they received no written notice identifying those hazards.
The government had the authority to address the uninhabitable conditions while Laughman was alive. It exercised that authority after he was dead.
The owners allege that the delay was connected to Laughman's usefulness in confidential-informant operations.
That allegation is part of their pending inverse-condemnation litigation against local governmental defendants.
And it raises an important financial question.
If law enforcement obtained investigative benefits from maintaining an offender's presence at a privately owned property, why should the owners bear the resulting damage, loss of possession, and remediation expenses?
Consider the financial arrangement.
The government may avoid incarceration costs.
It may obtain information from cooperating offenders.
It may receive federal and state funding for narcotics enforcement, treatment, and diversion.
Its agencies may obtain additional appropriations as the epidemic worsens.
Meanwhile, a private property owner may lose a building.
The government counts its expenditures as the cost of fighting heroin. Where does it count the private property it allegedly sacrificed in the process?
The Senate's reports provide no identified statewide accounting of those losses.
There is no figure for the number of homes occupied by diverted drug offenders.
No identified accounting of properties damaged during confidential-informant operations.
No calculation of losses suffered by owners who were unable to obtain timely police or code-enforcement intervention.
No statewide measure of uncompensated private property damage attributable to the government's decisions concerning the continued liberty, housing, or investigative use of drug offenders.
Without those figures, the government's financial presentation is incomplete.
A dollar saved on incarceration may become thousands of dollars in damage to somebody else's property.
A successful narcotics investigation may generate evidence for prosecution while leaving a private residence damaged or contaminated.
An offender's continued liberty may benefit one agency's budget while imposing costs on another agency, neighboring residents, and property owners.
Those costs do not disappear merely because they are excluded from the government's financial reports.
And this brings us to the fundamental question:
How many more 201 Main Streets are there in upstate New York?
How many property owners have been forced to finance, through the destruction of their own property, the government's policies concerning heroin dealers, Drug Court diversion, and confidential informants?
Until those losses are identified and counted, New York cannot present a complete accounting of the financial consequences of its heroin policies.
The public is entitled to know not only how much the government spent fighting the heroin epidemic, but how much damage was inflicted upon private citizens while that publicly financed system operated.
Documentary Sources and Authorities
New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Solutions to New York's Heroin Epidemic (2014), including Southern Tier regional findings, testimony summaries, and recommendations of law-enforcement officials, prosecutors, and treatment providers.
New York State Joint Senate Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, Roundtable Discussion to Examine the Issues Facing Communities in the Wake of Increased Heroin and Opioid Abuse, SUNY Oneonta, February 23, 2016, particularly the testimony of Chenango County District Attorney Joseph A. McBride, Delaware County Undersheriff Craig DuMond, and Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl.
New York State Senate Majority Task Force on Heroin and Opioid Addiction, 2018 Report & Recommendations (October 23, 2018), pp. 1, 4, 11, 15, documenting opioid-related mortality, public funding increases, and jail-based substance-use-disorder treatment.
People v. Rodriguez, 121 A.D.3d 1435 (3d Dep't 2014).
Rodriguez v. Griffin, No. 9:16-CV-1037, 2018 WL 6446199 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2018), summarizing the criminal trial testimony concerning heroin distribution, residential stash houses, cooperating witnesses, and confidential informants.
People v. Laughman, Chenango County Indictment/Superior Court No. 2014-78; Delaware County Indictment No. 2017-025, County Court Case No. 2017-321.
Neroni v. Delaware County, Index No. EF2025-447 (Sup. Ct., Delaware County), Amended Verified Complaint and related exhibits concerning James Laughman, 201 Main Street, alleged governmental use of confidential informants, property destruction, and inverse condemnation.
Village of Delhi Police Department records concerning James Laughman and 201 Main Street, including incident reports, photographs, code-enforcement records, and materials produced in response to FOIL requests.
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