By Susan Arbetter City of Albany PUBLISHED 7:30 PM ET Jul. 15, 2021 PUBLISHED 7:30 PM EDT Jul. 15, 2021 SHARE In light of a CDC report released this week stating that 93,000 people in the U.S. died of drug overdoses in 2020, New York state Sen. Pete Harckham asked a timely question: “If we’re going to declare a state of emergency over guns, then why not declare one around opioids?” In a press release, Harckham, a Hudson Valley Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, stated “last week, Cuomo declared a state of emergency regarding gun violence and committed over $135 million to counter the alarming rise of shootings around the state. Where is our moral outrage regarding the latest overdose statistics?”