The painful and widespread impacts of the opioid epidemic persist in New Jersey. Efforts to stem the tide have been bolstered by more federal money and better education about the dangerous cocktails of drugs available on the streets. Statistically, new statewide figures out Thursday show fatal drug overdoses are beginning to decline, but in its place is a troubling new trend.
“When you look at certain periods of time, in particular April 2020 to April 2021, New Jersey was the only state in the nation that actually saw a reduction in the number of overdose deaths, where many states in the country were seeing dramatic increases,” said Michael Litterer, the vice president at the Institute for Prevention and Recovery at RWJBarnabas Health, which is an underwriter of NJ Spotlight News. “What we were seeing was a dramatic decrease amongst white residents of New Jersey, but a dramatic increase among Black and Hispanic residents of New Jersey.”
