FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 21, 2022

Contact: Natalie Golub, 973-382-4560, natalie@drugfreenj.org

Experts to Detail Opioid Epidemic’s Effects on New Jersey Families in Upcoming Webinar

PDFNJ and New Jersey Attorney General’s Office to Host 2^nd Webinar of 2022

MILLBURN — Experts will discuss the opioid epidemic in New Jersey and its impact on families in the next installment of the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series, presented by the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey (PDFNJ) and the Office of the New Jersey Coordinator of Addiction Responses and Enforcement Strategies (NJ CARES), which is responsible for overseeing addiction-fighting efforts across the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General.

The webinar, “The Opioid Epidemic and the Impact on New Jersey Families,” will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, February 24. It will feature Suzanne Borys, Assistant Division Director of the Office of Planning, Research, Evaluation, Prevention and Olmstead with the NJ Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services; Susan Long, Director of Hope One of Atlantic County; Donna DeStefano, founder of Parents in Connection for Kids, Inc. (P.I.C.K); and Pam Capaci, CEO of HOPE Sheds Light.

“The impact of the opioid epidemic goes beyond the person suffering from addiction; it also touches that person’s family and loved ones,” PDFNJ Executive Director Angelo Valente said. “This webinar will examine the strain addiction causes families and provide resources and information on how to find help.”

This webinar will be the second in the 2022 Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day Learning Series. In 2021, PDFNJ and NJ CARES collaborated on 10 webinars as part of the series. The organizations first combined efforts on the series in 2020 as a strategy to provide education on the opioid crisis in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The series is a branch of Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day, which has been held in New Jersey on October 6 each year since 2016. The statewide single-day initiative is organized by PDFNJ and The Community Coalition for a Safe & Healthy Morris, in cooperation with the New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Governor’s Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. The goal of the day is to mobilize the prevention and treatment communities, community leaders and concerned citizens to raise awareness of the potential for dependency on prescribed pain medicine, as well as their link to heroin and fentanyl use in the state.

In 2021, more than 3,000 people in New Jersey died from suspected drug overdoses, a vast majority of which involved some form of opioid including prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

To learn more about the Knock Out Opioid Abuse Day and to register for this and future webinars, please visit knockoutday.drugfreenj.org.

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Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey: Best known for its statewide substance use prevention advertising campaign, the Partnership for a Drug-Free New Jersey is a private not-for-profit coalition of professionals from the communications, corporate and government communities whose collective mission is to reduce demand for illicit drugs in New Jersey through media communication. To date, more than $200 million in broadcast time and print space has been donated to the Partnership’s New Jersey campaign, making it the largest public service advertising campaign in New Jersey’s history. Since its inception, the Partnership has garnered 211 advertising and public relations awards from national, regional and statewide media organizations.