New York Police Agencies Could Buy Fentanyl Test Kits With Federal Crime Funds
A police group backs a bill letting law enforcement buy fentanyl test kits and naloxone with federal Byrne JAG grants. New York's share: about $17 million.
The National Police Association endorsed a bill this week that would let police departments pay for fentanyl test kits and overdose reversal drugs with federal crime-fighting money they already receive. The legislation, H.R. 10678, runs a single sentence. Two of its four sponsors represent New York.
A Very Short Bill With A Very Long Name
The endorsement landed on October 15, about two weeks after Rep. Tom Kean Jr., a New Jersey Republican, introduced what he calls the Fight Against Fentanyl Act. Kean's co-sponsors are Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey's 2nd District, Andrew Garbarino of New York's 2nd District on Long Island, and Michael Lawler of New York's 17th District in the Hudson Valley. The bill was referred to the House Judiciary Committee on October 1 and has not moved since.
The National Police Association is not a labor union. It is a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Indianapolis that lobbies on policing issues, publishes commentary, and files briefs in court. Its legislative director, Paula Fitzsimmons, framed the proposal as a procurement fix rather than a change in drug policy. "Because of fentanyl test kits, officers are in a better position to determine if naloxone should be administered, and they can take necessary steps to protect themselves from potential drug exposure," she said.
The second half of that argument is the one built for small departments with no grant writers on staff. "Law enforcement agencies that lack sufficient resources to seek and apply for separate funding would have expanded access to these life-saving tools without having to navigate administrative hurdles," Fitzsimmons added.
What The Amendment Actually Changes
The bill does not create a program. It edits one line of an existing one.
The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, known almost universally as Byrne JAG, sends federal money to states and localities by formula every year. The statute governing the program lists what an agency may spend its award on: law enforcement programs, prosecution and courts, prevention and education, corrections, drug treatment and enforcement, planning and technology, victim services, mental health and crisis intervention teams, and crisis intervention court proceedings.
The Fight Against Fentanyl Act inserts eleven words into the drug treatment and enforcement bullet: "including programs to purchase fentanyl testing kits and opioid reversal agents."
Why eleven words matter. A JAG award requires the recipient to declare what it will fund, and auditors read those declarations closely. When a purchase is not clearly inside a listed purpose area, agencies tend to avoid it, and grant managers tend to say no. The amendment removes that ambiguity for two specific items that have been drifting in the gray zone since departments started buying them with local money.
Scale, though, is modest. Byrne JAG state allocations for fiscal 2026 total about $201.6 million nationwide, with a separate pool reserved for large local jurisdictions. The program is not the federal government's main vehicle for overdose prevention, and the bill adds no money to it.
Why Officers Are The Ones Buying
Police officers are often the first people to reach an overdose call. Test kits entered the patrol conversation later than naloxone did, as a way for an officer to decide whether powder found at a traffic stop or during a search warrant deserves to be handled as fentanyl, and whether a person showing symptoms is likely to respond to an overdose reversal drug.
The association's statement treats the kits primarily as officer protection. That emphasis sits awkwardly against the research.
What The Training Studies Show
A study published October 3 in Health & Justice tested a 50-minute online course on occupational fentanyl exposure with 322 police officers from 26 states, then interviewed 21 of them. The authors, from NDRI-USA in New York, Columbia University, NYU, Northeastern University and Prevention Point Pittsburgh, reported that "misinformation regarding occupational fentanyl exposure remains common among U.S. law enforcement despite evidence indicating that incidental exposure poses minimal risk of opioid toxicity."
After the training, officers were measurably more confident that incidental skin contact with fentanyl would not cause an overdose, better at recognizing an overdose, and more confident reversing one. Even so, some participants continued to read frightening workplace moments as proof of fentanyl toxicity when the details did not match opioid poisoning at all. Experience, the researchers concluded, does not always correct a belief once a department has organized itself around it.
None of that makes test kits useless to police. It relocates the benefit. A strip tells an officer how to respond, whether to reach for naloxone, how to package evidence, when to call an ambulance. It is a decision aid, not a barrier between a first responder and a substance.
New York's Slice Of The Money
New York receives more Byrne JAG money than most states, split between Albany and local police departments. The figures below are the fiscal 2026 formula allocations published by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
| Recipient | FY 2026 Byrne JAG allocation |
|---|---|
| New York State (administered by DCJS) | $10,207,766 |
| New York City | $4,964,030 |
| Erie County group (Buffalo, Amherst, Cheektowaga) | $210,935 |
| Nassau County | $154,055 |
| Monroe County group (Rochester, Greece) | $142,128 |
| Onondaga County group (Syracuse) | $120,485 |
| Westchester County group (Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle) | $101,545 |
| Suffolk County | $88,064 |
| Albany city | $80,822 |
| All New York local jurisdictions combined | $6,132,926 |
The statewide award is not a police budget. The Division of Criminal Justice Services takes the $10.2 million and subgrants it across New York to counties, treatment courts, reentry programs and local agencies, weighing competing requests against one another. A department that wants to buy test kits with this money would be bidding against a sheriff who wants radios and a county that wants staff for its drug court.
The State Already Mails Test Strips To Residents
New Yorkers do not need Congress to get a fentanyl test strip. Through a program called Harm Reduction Delivered, the state's Office of Addiction Services and Supports mails free fentanyl test strips, xylazine test strips and naloxone to any resident with a valid New York address. Individuals can request packs of 25 or 50; certified providers can order up to 1,200 at a time. The supplies are paid for with opioid settlement funds rather than federal grants, and the state partnered with a private vendor to run the ordering and shipping.
County health departments distribute on top of that. Erie County places harm reduction supplies in public "OPEN" stands alongside Narcan, and lists both naloxone and fentanyl test strips among the items residents can take without an appointment or a conversation.
The state's naloxone pipeline tells the larger story. Officials have shipped roughly 1.4 million naloxone kits since the distribution push began, and overdose deaths have fallen about 45 percent, from more than 6,630 in 2022 to an estimated 3,775 in 2025.
That reframes the bill for New York. The question here was never whether test strips exist in the state. It is which institution pays for them and who they reach: a public health supply aimed at people who use drugs, or a police supply aimed at officers, investigations and evidence rooms.
Two Federal Agencies, Opposite Instructions
Six months ago, federal guidance on this exact product pointed the other way.
On April 24, SAMHSA told its grantees that federal funds could no longer buy fentanyl, xylazine or medetomidine test strips, sterile syringes, pipes, or sterile water used to prepare drugs. The directive reversed a 2021 policy that had explicitly permitted test strip purchases, and programs around the country rewrote budgets in response. Some stopped handing strips out.
The Fight Against Fentanyl Act does not overturn that letter. It routes around it. HHS grants and Justice Department grants are separate pools governed by separate rules, and the Justice Department never adopted the SAMHSA restriction. The result is two agencies of the same federal government pointing local organizations in opposite directions on the same dollar's worth of paper.
What The Strips Cannot Detect
Test strips also cover less of the supply than the phrase "fentanyl testing kits" suggests. Standard strips are built to detect fentanyl and certain closely related analogs, which is why New York ships a separate xylazine strip instead of one combined product.
The gap widens as the supply changes. Cychlorphine, an opioid that appeared in New York's drug supply this year and was linked to a San Francisco teenager's death, is not detected by fentanyl test strips. Neither are the nitazenes, which the Drug Enforcement Administration placed in Schedule I earlier this year. An officer who tests a bag and finds no fentanyl has learned something true and something insufficient at the same time.
What Would Have To Happen Next
H.R. 10678 has four sponsors, no committee hearing, and no Senate companion. Nothing in a one-sentence amendment moves on its own. The bill would need to clear the Judiciary Committee, pass the House, find a Senate sponsor, clear that chamber, and be signed. Most bills in that position never become law.
If this one did, the effect would stay narrow and administrative. No new appropriation. No mandate that any department buy anything. Just a cleaner answer to a question an auditor might ask about a line item: whether a case of test kits belongs on a Byrne JAG ledger or does not.
Which leaves New York agencies with a practical question they can answer today, without waiting. A department that wants fentanyl test strips this month can request a supply from OASAS, direct officers to a county health department stand, or keep training officers on what a strip can and cannot tell them about the bag in front of them. Congress will decide separately whether the same box can be purchased with a federal grant.
Written by
MTNYC Editorial TeamThe MTNYC Editorial Team is a group of healthcare writers, researchers, and addiction specialists dedicated to providing accurate, compassionate, and evidence-based information about addiction treatment and recovery resources in New York State.
