NJ on pace to shatter this grim record for the fourth-straight year
In 2011, as the national opioid crisis was beginning to reveal itself, New Jersey officials were alarmed to see drug deaths crack 1,000 for the first time.
This year, the state passed that total by early May.
An analysis of data from the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office shows that, thus far in 2018, at least 1,669 people have died of drug overdoses — an average of more than eight a day.
If the state stays at the current pace, deaths will eclipse 3,000 for the first time, all but assuring a fourth-straight record-setting year.
Each year this decade, New Jersey has lost the equivalent of a small town to the opioid crisis.
In 2012, a town the size of Milford was wiped out because of drugs, and law enforcement officials warned the state was becoming a hub for heroin dealers.
The next year, the state lost the equivalent of Lebanon Borough. State Sen. Robert Singer, R-Ocean, was incredulous.
“If five kids died of a measles outbreak, we’d have parents attacking the schools,” he told the Star-Ledger at the time. “We had five deaths in one week and nobody is outraged. I’m mind-boggled that we did not see a surge of people asking ‘What are we going to do about it?’ “
By 2015, the state would lose a town the size of Seaside Park. An NJ Advance Media investigation estimated at least 128,000 were addicted to opioids in the state. Gov. Chris Christie was well on his way to making the issue a priority in his second term. Still, some local officials rejected the problem.
Then, in 2016, fentanyl entered the picture and New Jersey lost a Helmetta — about 2,200 people. Narcan, an overdose reversal drug, was used more than 10,000 times in the state. Fentanyl changed the game for law enforcement, which was now trying to wrangle a drug that could kill tens of thousands with what would fit into a standard envelope.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 2,620 people died of drug overdoses in New Jersey last year, which would wipe out 99 percent of Moonachie.
After Donald Trump was elected president, he put Christie in charge of a national panel to investigate solutions to the opioid crisis. Back home, he spent more than $42 million on an ad campaign to raise awareness of the issue, which was still failing to galvanize mass attention from the public.
“In the end, if we don’t change the stigma, then these behaviors, both the initial addiction and the relapse, will happen in the shadows, exclusively,” Christie said in an interview shortly before leaving office. “Why? Because people won’t want to hear it or see it, and we need to hear it and see it. Because now, the only time we hear it or see it is when we go to the funeral, and then, it’s too late.”
By early 2018, Kelly Ann Conway had taken over national efforts and was tasked with spearheading the implementation of the task force’s recommendations. Most of them were thrown out, and most of the experts empaneled to help were sidelined.
In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy has said far less on the subject than his predecessor. He outlined a plan to spend the remaining $100 million allocated by Christie late in his term, and criticized the advertising campaign the former governor embarked upon.
Murphy’s new attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, has taken a more active stance. Grewal created a new office to track and address the opioid crisis, which publishes statistics weekly on suspected overdose deaths.
Based on those statistics, New Jersey is on pace to lose the equivalent of Saddle River by the end of 2018.
In Cumberland County alone, deaths are up more than 100% compared to the first six months of 2017.
In 2013, Singer said he believed parents would be in an uproar if five children died of a measles outbreak, expressing dismay that the public didn’t share the same passion for addiction.
Since he made that statement, more than 10,700 people have died in New Jersey from drug overdoses.
Stephen Stirling may be reached at sstirling@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @sstirling. Find him on Facebook.