Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the number of expected drug-related deaths this year.

New Jersey is likely to see fewer than 3,000 drug-related deaths this year, according to State Police predictions — marking the first real year-over-year drop in at least a decade. Their data also shows a growing number of these fatalities involve Black and Hispanic residents and those over age 55.

Reports from the state medical examiner’s office indicate overdoses and other deaths involving drugs were on track to fall nearly 7% in 2022 when compared to last year. State Police now believe New Jersey could end the year with  2,904 such fatalities,  the lowest since 2017, when 2,737 residents lost their lives to drugs and the last time the total fell below the 3,000 mark.

This drop also represents the “most significant progress” New Jersey has made in curbing the opioid epidemic, according to State Police Capt. Jason Piotrowski. He shared the data Thursday during a webinar hosted by the Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, a nonprofit that collaborates with state officials to address substance abuse, along with the New Jersey Coordinator for Addiction Response and Enforcement Strategies, or NJCARES, a part of the state Attorney General’s office. The decline also follows two years of record-level substance misuse — and a roughly 30% increase in related fatalities nationwide, according to federal data — driven in large part by the fear, anxiety and isolation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We have a long way to go, and one overdose is too many, but we are trending down this year,” Piotrowski said. “It’s a little bit of a glimmer of hope here in this tragic epidemic.” 

But while drug-related deaths are trending downward overall this year and among white residents, the picture is different for New Jersey residents of color, according to the medical examiner data shared. In 2015, more than three-quarters of the fatal overdoses involved white people, while Black people accounted for 13% and Hispanic residents 9%. In 2022, white people comprise just over half of the fatalities, while Black deaths make up 28% and Hispanic people 15%.  

NJ is not unique 

This demographic split is not unique to New Jersey, federal figures from 2020 suggest. Data from more than two dozen states, including New Jersey, shows that while overdoses jumped during the pandemic for all groups, the increase for Black Americans was twice that of white people, 44% to 22%. Indigenous populations saw drug deaths increase 39% that year; the increase was 22% among Asian communities and 21% among Hispanic Americans. 

Drug-related deaths began trending downward earlier this year. Weekly reports from the state medical examiner showed this downturn picking up pace recently. 

The medical examiner data shared Thursday also shows that overdose deaths are rising among older New Jerseyans, despite the overall downturn this year. Nearly half of all fatalities here involve residents between age 35 and 54 — something that has remained stable since 2015 — but deaths among those between 25 and 34 years have dropped from one-quarter of all overdoses in 2015 to 18% in 2022. Meanwhile, the 55-and-older age group has seen its percentage of drug deaths double, from 16% in 2015 to 31% this year.   

These demographic trends disturb Piotrowski and his colleagues. “We certainly don’t want to see this continue,” he said. But he is encouraged by the recent weekly data, which shows overdoses falling rapidly overall. 

Drug-related deaths began trending downward earlier this year, but weekly reports from the state medical examiner showed this downturn picking up pace recently. The largest number of overdose deaths were recorded in the second and fourth weeks of January, when 73 people died each of those two weeks. But weekly deaths have largely remained between 45 and 65 since late February, dropping to 41 in late November. Piotrowski said he expects this decline will continue, resulting in the lowest annua total in years.  

Counties where most deaths have occurred 

New Jersey has lost at least 22,600 people to drug deaths since 2012, according to the medical examiner data. Many of them were residents of Essex, Camden and Atlantic counties, where fatal overdose rates have been high and continue to climb. Hunterdon, Salem and Warren counties traditionally have the fewest drug deaths.  

Nationwide, law enforcement recorded more than 107,000 overdose deaths last year, Tim McMahon, a special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration focused on New Jersey, said during Thursday’s webinar. That’s more than car crash fatalities (97,000), deaths by suicide (46,000) or fatal shootings (41,000). Two-thirds of the drug-related deaths now involve fentanyl or a similar synthetic opioid, cheap substitutes for heroin that have become near-ubiquitous in illegal drug compounding. 

A new threat is now emerging in the form of xylazine. 

“The DEA views [fentanyl] as the most significant drug threat in the country now,” McMahon said. The substance — generally manufactured by one of two cartels in Mexico with chemicals imported from China — is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, he said, and 6 in 10 of the pills of any kind that agents now confiscate from drug dealers contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl. 

“Fentanyl just is creating more of a profit margin for these cartels than heroin is,” McMahon said. This makes it economically feasible for them to risk the rising number of overdoses that result.  

Piotrowski, with the State Police, said New Jersey has seen a clear shift from heroin toward fentanyl in recent years. In 2015, 91% of the samples law enforcement sent to the state lab for testing revealed heroin alone; this year just 2% of the submissions have been pure heroin.  

A new threat is now emerging in the form of xylazine, Piotrowski said, an animal tranquilizer known colloquially as “tranq.” While similar to opioids or their synthetic cousins, in that it slows breathing and heart rate, he said it cannot be overridden by the lifesaving overdose-reversal agent naloxone, often known as Narcan. Xylazine is now found in 35% of pills and other similar samples tested by the state crime lab, he added.

— Graphics by Genesis Obando