Every MTA cop will begin carrying a cure for heroin overdoses as part of an initiative by the state Attorney General’s Office to teach state and local police how to quickly treat people adversely affected by the drug right at the scene.
The agency’s 670 cops — who patrol the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and Staten Island Railway — will each receive a kit that includes two pre-filled syringes and two inhalers of the drug naloxone, also known by its brand name, Narcan.
The medicine can reverse the effects of an overdose almost instantly.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s Community Overdose Prevention program, which launched in April, will pay for the kits, which cost $60 and have a shelf life of two years.
“This program will literally save lives,” said Schneiderman, who will announce the distribution of the kits at Penn Station on Tuesday.
Under the statewide program — which is slated to cost $5 million — cops around New York will all be carrying the kits.
More than 100 statewide law-enforcement agencies have applied for almost 3,300 of the lifesaving kits. The MTA is the next law-enforcement agency on the list to get the drug.
Schneiderman has called the drug “stunningly effective” in stopping an overdose in what has become “a heroin epidemic.” His office has also been aggressive in combating prescription- drug abuse and “doctor shopping” to get an Rx.
Suffolk County launched its own program in the summer of 2012 — and saved 563 lives in 2013.
Heroin deaths in New York City spiked by 84 percent between 2010 and 2012 after four years of decline. Recent notable deaths include the February passing of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died of a mix of heroin, cocaine and other drugs.