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U.S. Budgets Cash to Treat Heroin Abuse in Northeast

CHILMARK, Mass. — Faced with a surge in heroin abuse in recent years, especially in the Northeast, the White House on Monday announced a program aimed at improving the government’s response to the drug across 15 states in that region.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy said it would spend $2.5 million to hire public safety and public health coordinators in five areas in an attempt to focus on the treatment, rather than the punishment, of addicts.

The funding — a sliver of the $25.1 billion that the government spends every year to combat drug use — will help create a new “heroin response strategy” aimed at confronting the increase in use of the drug. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that heroin-related deaths had nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013.

“The Heroin Response Strategy will foster a collaborative network of public health-public safety partnerships to address the heroin/opioid epidemic,” said the announcement by the policy office. “The aim will be to facilitate collaboration between public health and public safety partners within and across jurisdictions, sharing best practices, innovative pilots, and identifying new opportunities to leverage resources.”

Once thought of as a drug used only by hard-core addicts, heroin has infiltrated many communities, largely because of its easy availability and its low price, officials said.

The problem has become especially severe in New England, where officials have called for a renewed effort to confront it. Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont devoted his entire State of the State Message in January to what he called “a full-blown heroin crisis” in his state. Like the new White House effort, the governor called for a new, treatment-based approach to the drug.

“The time has come for us to stop quietly averting our eyes from the growing heroin addiction in our front yards,” Mr. Shumlin said then, “while we fear and fight treatment facilities in our backyards.”

The increase in heroin abuse, and its effect on middle-class communities, has been documented in the news media in recent years. A report by The New York Times showed how a mother on Staten Island became addicted to the drug. An article in The Washington Post focused on the drug’s impact in Maine.

Federal officials said on Monday that the new funding would be directed to communities that have already been designated as “high intensity drug trafficking areas,” under a program started by Congress in 1988. The five areas to receive the heroin funding are: Appalachia, New England, Philadelphia/Camden, New York/New Jersey, and Washington/Baltimore.

Coordinators in those five regions will form what officials called a “15-state network of experienced, connected law enforcement contacts.” They said they hoped the new program would support law enforcement efforts while focusing on treatment. The Washington Post first reported on the administration’s plans.

Michael Botticelli, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement that the new heroin strategy demonstrates the administration’s “strong commitment” to addressing the surge in what he called the opioid epidemic in the United States.

“This administration will continue to expand community-based efforts to prevent drug use, pursue ‘smart on crime’ approaches to drug enforcement, increase access to treatment, work to reduce overdose deaths, and support the millions of Americans in recovery,” Mr. Botticelli said.

But some critics said the new effort was far too small to be thought of as a serious attempt to combat the rise of heroin abuse. Mayor Ted Gatsas of Manchester, N.H., a Republican, said the new program would not be enough to confront the heroin deaths in his city, which numbered 50 in the first half of the year.

“Anything that we do to fight this epidemic is a great thing,” Mr. Gatsas said, “but I don’t think we need coordinators. We need funding to make sure that people have the opportunity to get into rehab.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Budgets Funds to Treat Heroin Abuse in Northeast. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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