Every year, Chuck commits to traveling to all62 counties in New York to meet with constituents.
During a visit to Kingston, NY, on February 16th, 2016, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer demanded that his colleagues in Congress back up their rhetoric and support passage of desperately-needed emergency funding to confront the exploding heroin, opioid and prescription drug epidemic. Schumer cited the fact that heroin seizures in Ulster County tripled between 2007 and 2014, and heroin- and opioid-related drug arrests increased from 30 percent of all drug arrests in 2012 to 70 percent of all drug arrests in 2015. According to a report from the Poughkeepsie Journal, Ulster County saw 95 drug-related fatalities from 2008 to 2012 alone, and that number could be expected to increase. Schumer said it is time for Congress to put its money where its mouth is and provide emergency funding for a recently-passed drug prevention bill. Schumer said this critical bill could put a huge dent in the drug epidemic, but Congress still needs to allocate money and not just empty promises. Schumer said emergency funding will significantly help communities like those in Ulster County reduce and prevent future drug overdoses and deaths.