courierpostonline.com - COMMENTARY: The next steps for NJ to curb opiate addiction
3/29/2017
New Jersey is now on the right path to combat opiate addiction. A recently adopted comprehensive law incorporates most of the major common-sense measures that Partnership for a Drug Free New Jersey, addiction experts and impact families have long advocated. Taken together, these measures give New Jersey among the strongest sets, if not the strongest set, of opiate prevention laws of any state in the nation.
This new law takes on the opiate epidemic at the source: the over-prescribing of opiate-based painkillers. It limits initial prescriptions to five pills, and mandates all prescribers receive ongoing training in current best prescribing practices as a condition of being allowed to prescribe opiate-based painkillers. The new law also requires a conversation between all patients and their doctor, before an opiate is prescribed, about the risks of addiction and potential alternatives. This requirement for a conversation before an opiate is prescribed expands to all patients the provisions of a recently adopted law that specifically targeted the parents of children and teenagers.
We applaud state Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Middlesex; the co-sponsors of this legislation; and Gov. Chris Christie for this major step forward, but this is no time to rest on our laurels. Now that we have built a solid foundation, the hard work of implementation and stepped-up education must begin.
New Jersey faces a large-scale problem. More than 100,000 New Jersey residents already are addicted to prescription opiates or their illegal street cousin, heroin. More than 5,000 people have died from overdoses in our state in the past decade alone. And the overdose antidote, Narcan, is employed more than 20 times a day.
The state Board of Medical Examiners and the state Department of Health must move quickly to inform and educate all prescribers about the new requirements. Additionally, enforcement and oversight are needed to ensure that prescribers are checking the state’s prescription monitoring database, as is mandatory, in order to catch any doctor shopping. These implementation steps will enable New Jersey to fulfill U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s vision of doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers truly being "the first line of defense in the battle against addiction.”
A ground-breaking pilot program, Alternatives to Opiates (ALTO), underway at St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center Emergency Room, shows us what is possible when medical providers become an active part of the solution. This successful program demonstrates that most patients can be given effective pain relief without the use of opiates. So far, three out of every four patients needing treatment to reduce pain were treated successfully by alternative medications and therapy, forgoing the use of highly addictive opiate-based painkillers
Some of the youngest victims of the nation’s opioid epidemic are children under age 5 who die after swallowing opioids. The number of children’s deaths is still small relative to the overall toll from opioids, but toddler fatalities are up. Associated Press
There is also a need for stepped up education both of the medical community and the public at large about this epidemic. Providing up-to-date and timely information through both targeted and broad public education efforts are critical. Ensuring that all of our high schools bring their anti-drug curriculum up-to-date is essential.
We now have the tools to curb this epidemic. Let’s get to work putting them to use.
Elaine Pozycki is chair of the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey.