With deaths from heroin and opioid prescription pills soaring, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman on Thursday is expected to announce a push to have law enforcement officers across the state carry a drug that is effectively an antidote to overdose.

The program, to be funded primarily from $5 million in criminal and civil seizures from drug dealers, would help provide a kit with the drug, naloxone, and the training to use it to every state and local officer in New York, the attorney general’s office said.

The authorities have increasingly seen naloxone, also known under its brand name Narcan, as a potent weapon against a national surge in drug overdoses. Last month, the Justice Department encouraged emergency medical workers across the country to begin carrying the drug.

The move to broaden access in New York is the latest tactic employed by state officials to combat abuse of pills and the rising specter of heroin use. Last year, the state Health Department began more closely tracking prescriptions that are written for the most frequently abused drugs. Early data from the program show a decrease in so-called doctor shoppers, or those who move among many prescribers to get steady access to addictive pills.